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Maria Popova

Goodreads Author

Born

in Sofia, Bulgaria

Website

https://brainpickings.org

Twitter

brainpicker

Genre

History, Biography, Science

Member Since

August 2019

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Maria Popova is a reader and a writer, and writes about what she reads on Brain Pickings (brainpickings.org), which is included in the Library of Congress permanent digital archive of culturally valuable materials. She hosts The Universe in Verse—an annual charitable celebration of science through poetry—at the interdisciplinary cultural center Pioneer Works in Brooklyn.

1279 posts
Maria Popova's Blog

I Feel, Therefore I Understand: Humboldt on the Essence of Science and How to Read the Poetry of Nature

Born in the heyday of the denial of the human animal’s animality, in a world where nature was considered an ember of wildness to extinguish with civilization, its partitioned mystery dissected by various sciences walled off from one another, Alexander von Humboldt (September 14, 1769–May 6, 1859) set out to “establish the unity and harmony of this stupendous mass of force and matter,” in which “no

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Maria Popova’s books

Average rating: 4.31 · 9,342 ratings · 1,806 reviews · 33 distinct works • Similar authors

	Figuring 4.34 avg rating — 3,974 ratings — published 2019 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader by Maria Popova (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Claudia Zoe Bedrick (Editor), David Remnick (Preface) 4.52 avg rating — 1,507 ratings — published 2018 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Universe in Verse: 15 Portals to Wonder through Science & Poetry by Maria Popova (Goodreads Author), Ofra Amit (Illustrator) 4.27 avg rating — 1,319 ratings — published 2024 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Snail with the Right Heart: A True Story by Maria Popova (Goodreads Author), Ping Zhu (Illustrator) 4.20 avg rating — 398 ratings — published 2021 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	الحياة التي لم نعشها 3.39 avg rating — 232 ratings — published 2021	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Brain Pickings 4.75 avg rating — 73 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Timeless Advice on Writing From Famous Authors 4.50 avg rating — 10 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	An Almanac of Birds: 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days 4.89 avg rating — 9 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Coziest Place on the Moon by Maria Popova (Goodreads Author), Sarah Jacoby (illustrator) 4.38 avg rating — 8 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Neil Gaiman's Advice to Aspiring Writers 4.20 avg rating — 5 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Maria Popova wrote a new blog post What a Weasel Knows: Annie Dillard on How to Live Suppose we answer the most important question of existence in the affirmative. There is then only one question remaining: How shall we live this li Read more of this blog post »
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Quotes by Maria Popova (?)

“When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as importantly, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.”
― Maria Popova

tags: brain-pickings, maria-popova

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“Greatness is consistency driven by a deep love of the work.”
― Maria Popova

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“The richest relationships are often those that don’t fit neatly into the preconceived slots we have made for the archetypes we imagine would populate our lives—the friend, the lover, the parent, the sibling, the mentor, the muse. We meet people who belong to no single slot, who figure into multiple categories at different times and in different magnitudes. We then must either stretch ourselves to create new slots shaped after these singular relationships, enduring the growing pains of self-expansion, or petrify.”
― Maria Popova, Figuring

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