commonplace book

plural commonplace books · alternative commonplace-book

1. A personal notebook or journal in which memorabilia, quotations, etc., are written.

   I did this in thirty pages of closely written matter, of which a pressed copy remains in my commonplace-book.

   1910, Samuel Butler, chapter 2, in Unconscious Memory

   3 more examples

   The compiler of a commonplace book is on his own; he can put in anything that appeals to him: aphorisms, poems, parts of poems, newspaper clippings, song lyrics, bits of humor, overheard conversations—anything that has struck him as exciting, that he has found stimulating, odd or amusing.

   1970 May 3, William Cole, “Speaking of Commonplace Books”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   But the other kind of commonplace book was different. Its goal was to gather a collection of the wisest statements, usually of the ancients, for future meditation.

   2012 January 23, Alan Jacobs, “‘Commonplace Books’: Tumblrs of an Earlier Era”, in The Atlantic

   Popularized in a previous period of information overload, the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the commonplace book was more than a diary or journal of personal reflections. It was a learning tool that the educated class used to understand a rapidly changing world and their place in it.

   2022, Tiago Forte, Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organise Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential, Profile Books, →ISBN

   Synonyms: commonplace