Commonplace

A commonplace book is a reading diary. Sometimes it consisted of comments and responses to the book the author of the diary was reading and sometimes it consisted of direct quotes. Terry Teachout's blog on the Arts About Last Night discusses plays, novels and music, (he writes for several magazines)but has a popular section of quotes called "Almanac) I've already posted one quote-about universities- Here is another set from Michael Dirda's "Book by Book"-notes on reading and life-itself a kind of Common place book (Michael Dirda has been a reviewer for the Washington Post for two decades)

Every day one should at least hear one little song,read one good poem, see one fine painting and-if at all possible-speak a few sensible words.p.2 Goethe(The last one is the hardest(L.G)

If a thing is worth doing,it is worth doing badly p.26 G.K Chesterton

Genuine Criticism will never seek to prove but to point out.p.100 E.Curtiss

Caress the details,the divine details... what colour was the bottle containing the arsenic with which Madame Bovary poisoned herself.p132 Vladimir Nabokov

Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before,but in saying exactly what you think yourself (p.131) Leslie Stephen

My favorite
I have never worked in a coal mine or a uranium mine,or in a herring trawler;but I know from experience that working in a bank from 9:15 to 3:20,and once in four weeks the whole of Saturday, with two weeks holiday a year,was a rest cure compared to teaching in a school.(p.9) T.S. Eliot