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Love

Love, Happiness, and Time

How many of us regard love and happiness as a place? A box to tick off, a destination we get to? We often conceptualize these two things as goals. Is this responsible for why we are so devastated when …

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Philosopher Kahlil Gibran on the Relationship between Vulnerability and Love

In 1923 the Lebanese-American artist, poet, and philosopher Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) published his masterpiece, The Prophet, which endures as a timeless classic meditation on living. The essence of …

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Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into the Art of Living

“I am a person who listens for a living. I listen for wisdom, and beauty, and for voices not shouting to be heard.” *** Krista Tippett, the host of the compelling podcast On Being, is an incredible …

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Love as Moral Knowing

“Love allows us gently, respectfully and intimately to slip into the life of another person or animal or even the earth itself and to know it from the inside. In this way, love can become a way …

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Lan Leav’s Beautiful Poem: Soul Mates

This could be the most beautiful thing I’ve read so far this year. From Lang Leav’s amazing Love and Misadventure: Soul Mates I don’t know how you are so familiar to me—or why it feels …

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Vincent van Gogh Writes a Letter on the Three Stages of Love

In a letter to his brother Theo, dated Thursday, 3 November 1881, found in Ever Yours: The Essential Letters, Vincent van Gogh describes an unreciprocated love and in so doing alludes to three stages …

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John Steinbeck on Love

Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (1902-1968) is best known as the author of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men but we can pull from his letters a mix of insight and language that rivals that of …

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Passionate Prose: Balzac’s Love Letter

“I feel foolish and happy as soon as I let myself think of you.” — Honoré de Balzac *** Even in the age of email, texts, and snap chats nothing has replaced the power of a hand-written …

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Bertrand Russell: Love is Wise, Hatred is Foolish

“Love is wise, hatred is foolish.” — Bertrand Russell *** The British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) gave us some of the more enduring developments in 20th-century philosophy. …

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What Is Love?

“Love requires you to be physically and emotionally present. It also requires that you slow down.” *** What better day is there than today to explore love? In Love 2.0, psychologist …

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The Optimism Bias: Imagining A Positive Future

In The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain, Tali Sharot argues that we have a neurobiological basis for imagining a positive future. “Humans,” she writes, “do …

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Richard Feynman’s Love Letter to His Wife, Sixteen Months After Her Death

Richard Feynman was an amazing character mastering physics, thinking, life, and as we shall soon see, love. Richard and Arline Greenbaum were soul mates. They were a perfect symbiotic pair, each …

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Evidence-based tips for Valentine’s

Need to woo a partner in time for Valentine’s? Follow these simple, evidence-based instructions for boosting your irresistibility. When asking a lady for a dance or for her number, your chances …

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