The sacred art of keeping a commonplace book 📕

21 Jul, 2024

The Yellow Books -Vincent Van Gogh

I have been keeping a commonplace book since I was a kid even when I didn’t know there was a fancy name for it. Since then I have collected quite a bit of journals and notebooks filled with quotes, poems, sentences and my ramblings.

You can find out about the long history of commonplace books in many places. Dwight Garner’s Stash of Other Writers' Words, is a good place to start.

Many great men and women in history kept a commonplace book. One of the earliest examples is thought to be Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Charles Darwin’s father kept a commonplace book, and John Locke himself wrote a treatise about how to keep a commonplace book. Montaigne, who came up with the idea of the essay, kept a handwritten list of important sayings, maxims, and quotes from literature and history. The first essays he wrote were mostly just collections of these ideas.

Christian clerics started keeping commonplace books filled with quotes from the Church Fathers around the eighth century, which they used to draft sermons. These were referred to as florilegium, which is Latin for “gathering of flowers” as if each saying were a flower that had been arranged in a pastoral and theological bouquet.

One of the more intriguing trends in the evolution of Commonplace books was their importance in early female education. Before formal education or university education, women would compile their commonplace books. They were treasure troves of knowledge, gatherings of prose flowers (as the florilegium), and often places where those who couldn't travel could imagine themselves travelling to unseen places.

Ryan Holiday defines a commonplace book as a central resource or depository for ideas, quotes, anecdotes, observations and information you come across during your life and didactic pursuits. The purpose of the book is to record and organize these gems for later use in your life, in your business, in your writing, speaking or whatever it is that you do.

For years, I've hesitated about calling myself a writer because I hadn’t published any book. But of course, almost anyone who had given it any serious thought would conclude that one is not a writer merely because one has been published or paid for the act. As far as I can tell one of the essential things about being a writer is how much writing you do that no one ever will read.

So all these seemingly “wasted” words are necessary. The ones you write in that notebook that no one may ever read. The scraps of quotes, and words that you save on your notes app. I imagined these unreadable (by anyone but me) words as a long sheet of fabric—the raw material from which my ideas would someday take shape.

Here are some entries in my notebook to give you an idea of what my commonplace notebook looks like:

The scribbles at the bottom are from my 3yr old. That was her own entry for that day😊

Keeping a commonplace book is also a way to listen to your life, see it for the fathomless mystery that it is, and see the journey you have taken over the years. See the words that have shaped your life and made sense to you.

And if you still think you don’t need to keep a commonplace book, I’ll leave you with a quote from Louise Penny’s book, “A World of Curiosities”.

I am often asked where I get my ideas from. It's a very good question and one I always feel I should be able to answer. And yet, I struggle. How can I not know? I think it's because there are many ways, some clearer than others. I walk around with a notebook, and for many months before writing a book I observe and listen, taking downturns of phrases, single words, quotes from poems or books, snippets of conversation, or clipped articles from magazines and news reports. I often liken it to a pointillist work of art. Putting a dot of an idea here, another there. Some large, some tiny.

Do you keep a commonplace notebook or have you ever kept one?