commonplace book

See also: commonplace-book

English

Alternative forms

• commonplace-book

Noun

commonplace book (plural commonplace books)

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

   Synonym: commonplace

   • 1910, Samuel Butler, chapter 2, in Unconscious Memory:

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

   • 1970 May 3, William Cole, “Speaking of Commonplace Books”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     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.

   • 2012 January 23, Alan Jacobs, “‘Commonplace Books’: Tumblrs of an Earlier Era”, in The Atlantic‎^[2]:

     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.

   • 2022, Tiago Forte, Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organise Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential‎^[3], Profile Books, →ISBN:

     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.