Maria Popova, who writes the popular site The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings), spends her days reading old books and essays. She’s passionate about finding ideas, beauty, and wisdom in these texts and then connecting them in her own unique conversation with the world. Her reflections on the connection between critical thinking and hope in an interview with Krista Tippett on the On Being podcast helped me transform how I wanted to engage with the world. She argued, “critical thinking without hope is cynicism. But hope without critical thinking is naïveté.”
