Commonplace Book
- Thread starter Cannata
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I keep a Commonplace book on my computer. Exclusively quotations I have liked, mainly obscure. Up to 46 as of yesterday.
Keep a big old scrap pad next to my home date diary.
I have on my computer a folder for quotations I like. I've been adding to it for a long time. Back in the days before I had a computer I would write the quotations on scraps of paper and pin them to the wall next to my desk.
A recent one: "Every increase in joy a culture can provide for will do more for the ethical education of its members than all the warnings of punishment or preachings of virtue could do."
I also keep a small tablet handy for jotting down bits of poetry when they come to me. Funny, I always write poetry with a pencil, never with ink pen or by typing. For me, pencil lead on paper has a more intimate feel.
A recent one: "Every increase in joy a culture can provide for will do more for the ethical education of its members than all the warnings of punishment or preachings of virtue could do."
I also keep a small tablet handy for jotting down bits of poetry when they come to me. Funny, I always write poetry with a pencil, never with ink pen or by typing. For me, pencil lead on paper has a more intimate feel.
Hmm... I've never heard of the term "commonplace book" before. I quite like the idea of it. Thank you for putting it on my radar.
I'm just about finished my second A5 notebook .... interesting quotes, jokes, bits of wisdom, and mostly day to day impressions. I don't make daily entries.. every week or so is all.... hopefully after I'm gone my children take comfort in my words... and hopefully with one of my pens in their hand.
Like Hercule above I've never heard of this idea. The closest I've come is the typical school notebook I read the bible regularly and jot down my thoughts and notes on the context of the scriptures and cross references for them. I've read it three times so far and have three different sets (multiple notebooks each) that must be examined together. I'm on Joshua for the forth time currently. I guess I'll compile them on my next go round.
One of the greatest compliments I ever received was meant as a put down. An old "religious" boss told me that my knowledge of the bible was going to get in the way of my relationship with Jesus. lol. Jesus himself stated that one must take in knowledge of both God and Jesus in order to love them.
One of the greatest compliments I ever received was meant as a put down. An old "religious" boss told me that my knowledge of the bible was going to get in the way of my relationship with Jesus. lol. Jesus himself stated that one must take in knowledge of both God and Jesus in order to love them.
I think that technically a commonplace book contains only the words of others. When interleaved with your own writings, it's a journal.
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@Vespasian a commonplace book is different from a journal or diary. A commonplace book is a place to store knowledge and may include poems, quotes, passages from books, or other tidbits of knowledge. You are right in distinguishing a commonplace book from a journal.
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I had to Google the term, but I do keep a A5 Clairefontaine notebook on my desk that would fit the description. It basically has lots of notes that I intend to refer back to at later dates.
I also have a Rhodia notepad that has removable pages. That one I would just consider a notepad, as the stuff that gets jotted down in that is needed on a more temporary basis. Like reminders, grocery lists, tracking numbers, etc.
I also have a Rhodia notepad that has removable pages. That one I would just consider a notepad, as the stuff that gets jotted down in that is needed on a more temporary basis. Like reminders, grocery lists, tracking numbers, etc.
AimlessWanderer
Remember to forget me!
I'll say no.
I do always have a large pad for thoughts and ideas, but it is neither journal nor "commonplace" book. It's more for "thinking out loud" than for posterity. Lists, ideas, phone notes, budgeting calcs, and problem solving, but all very much in the moment, and not for sharing. When the book is full, it is disposed of, and very rarely is anything re-read further than six pages back.
I do always have a large pad for thoughts and ideas, but it is neither journal nor "commonplace" book. It's more for "thinking out loud" than for posterity. Lists, ideas, phone notes, budgeting calcs, and problem solving, but all very much in the moment, and not for sharing. When the book is full, it is disposed of, and very rarely is anything re-read further than six pages back.
I personally keep everything on my computer. It is very convenient. I write down all the most useful things in a notebook on my computer. These are either quotes or a whole text, it helps me in learning.
Every time I read the Bible, I find new meanings there.
It's nice to know I'm not the only person who has had a moron for a boss.
It was always so much fun to get called into their office and tell them they weren't my boss. I would then explain that I always tried to "work as unto the Lord."
Those conversations usually went one of two ways: I was either told to get out of their office or I was fired.
The stories I could tell about this boss! He was very religious but if you showed him from the bible he kept on his desk that he was not correct he would shrug it off. He felt that his personal knowledge "from God" overrode the bible and that he was in the same league as the "saints of old."
Some quick personal favorites...
1) Volcanos erupted to make room in hell. Hell was inside the earth and as people were added space was being used up, therefore, more room had to be made for the new arrivals.
2) He used Isaiah 4:1 to justify his many marriages. He had been married 7 times to 6 different women (one twice). He thought he could ignore all the other standards about marriage and divorce as long as number 7 was the last one and he "brought each one closer to God." The bible's view of divorce is pretty plain and Isaiah is describing the situation were most of the men would be killed off and there wouldn't be enough Jewish men for the women to marry. Therefore the women were willing to take and share any man they could find and take care of themselves as long as the man would get them pregnant and have children.
3) He was sorely disappointed that he had never been chosen to speak in tongues. I'll avoid discussion of that, but keep in mind what I said earlier about his personal knowledge from God vs the bible's contents.
I wound up quitting after about six months. I went to a place where I worked much harder, but the environment was better. I will admit that his ability to eliminate waste and get the most out of material was amazing. He was also a very talented song writer---he wrote hundreds and just put them away and shared a few with select people.
I keep loose journal pages that I print on an old Laserjet printer. Ideas/Notes/Schemes go on those.
I have it on my phone. That's more convenient for me then notebook
As a result of this thread I began trying to keep a commonplace book a while ago. I keep it in a bound volume of not so many pages. My experience is that trying to do something like this on a computer becomes out of sight out of mind, and I do not end up doing it and there is a certain pleasure and retention aid in writing things out by hand on paper. (I am not much into writing by hand on paper generally.) But I am finding hard copy commonplace book is often out of sight out of mind, too!
I used to keep it on my PC and phone but realized that as technology advances I can lose access to the data. That's why I use notebooks. The words will live longer than I will. 
AimlessWanderer
Remember to forget me!
I bought myself a diary (again) for this year. Tried using it a few different ways, but couldn't get any sense of worth/value from it.
Ideas, health, events, tasks completed, budget, meals, tracking my free floating body clock. Every which way I approached it, it seemed like a solution without a problem to fix... and as such, it became a task without an outcome.
Ideas, health, events, tasks completed, budget, meals, tracking my free floating body clock. Every which way I approached it, it seemed like a solution without a problem to fix... and as such, it became a task without an outcome.
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