commonplace book
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See also: commonplace-book
English
Alternative forms
Noun
commonplace book (plural commonplace books)
- 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, →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.
- 2022, Tiago Forte, Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organise Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential, 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.