My Commonplace Book

Definitions

Word Definition
5.3f1b tsundoku is the art of acquiring books but not reading them The condition of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them.
ab initio from the beginnning or first principles
Ad Astra Per Aspera to the stars through difficulties
Apophenia the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas)
Ex Astris, Scientia From the Stars, Knowledge
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges In times of war, the law falls silent
Interoperability An interoperable component is self contained. This means it can be reused in different situations and is easily maintainable.
Nihil sin labore nothing without labour
Non nobis solum nati we are not born for ourselves alone
Pariedolia the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern

First Lines of Books

First Line Book Author
In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
  • Adams, Douglas
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife Pride and Prejudice
  • Austen, Jane
Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert. God's War
  • Hurley, Kameron
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. Voyage of the Dawn Treader
  • Lewis, C.S.

Literature

Literature Author
For the Fallen
  • Binyon, Laurence
The Green Fields of France
  • Bogle, Eric
Benedictions 4
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition
Carmenum di Amatus
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition
Transfigurations 10
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition
Trials
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition
93 Percent Stardust
  • Gill, Nikita
If They Truly Love You
  • Gill, Nikita
Lessons From The Wind
  • Gill, Nikita
Perspectives
  • Gill, Nikita
Stars Shine Brightest
  • Gill, Nikita
You Are The Sun
  • Gill, Nikita
You Matter
  • Gill, Nikita
Litany Against Fear
  • Herbert, Frank
No Day But Today
  • Larson, Jonathan
Write the Story
  • Lovelace, Amanda
a world where all human beings are taken care of shouldn’t be called a “revolutionary” way of life
  • Lovelace, Amanda
fat - adjective
  • Lovelace, Amanda
i am a tigress who has earned her softer-than-velvet stripes.
  • Lovelace, Amanda
raid your library. read everything you can get your hands on & then some
  • Lovelace, Amanda
the love some girls have for other girls is so gentle & so soft & so fucking beautiful
  • Lovelace, Amanda
the only thing required to be a woman is to identify as one.
  • Lovelace, Amanda
there came a time when poetry showed me how to bleed without the demand of blood
  • Lovelace, Amanda
Traveler's Prayer
  • Morgan, Kass (book)
What I Would Tell Eve
  • O'Leary, Meagan Mcauliffe
Wild Geese
  • Oliver, Mary
Dulce et Decorum Est
  • Owen, Wilfred
labour
  • Paloma, Paris
Remember
  • Rossetti, Christina
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
  • Thomas, Dylan
Every Word You Ever Needed
  • Winder, Tanaya
The Healing
  • Winder, Tanaya
We Are Made of Stars
  • Winder, Tanaya
The Serenity Prayer
  • Wygal, Winnifred Crane
Woodland burial Ayres, Pam

Miscellania

Note
An Incomplete List of Books I Have Read
Ursula Le Guin's schedule

Quotes

Quote Author
If you took a couple of David Bowies and stuck one of the David Bowies on the top of the other David Bowie
  • Adams, Douglas
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.
  • Adams, Douglas
I think that the most basic thing of ethics is being aware of how your actions affect others, and having an awareness of what they want and how they feel.
  • Anders, Charlie Jane
When Laurence was old enough to do what he liked, he would be old enough to understand he couldn’t do what he liked.
  • Anders, Charlie Jane
You know, no matter what you do, people are going to expect you to be someone you’re not.
  • Anders, Charlie Jane
Do your best until you know better, then do better
  • Angelou, Maya
People will not forget how you made them feel
  • Angelou, Maya
You can only become truly accomplished at something you love.
  • Angelou, Maya
Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.
  • Box, George
What are we holding onto. That there's some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.
  • Boyens, Phillipa
  • Jackson, Peter
  • Tolkien, J.R.R.
It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay
  • Boyens, Phillipa
  • Jackson, Peter
  • Walsh, Fran
Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing.
  • Butler, Octavia E.
Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
  • Clark, Fred
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
  • Clarke, Arthur C.
Characters do shocking things, not because the author wishes to shock, but because it is in the character of humans to misbehave.
  • Cole, Teju
Continue to fail better—failure of a kind that might even be better than certain forms of success.
  • Cole, Teju
When we love someone we let them dictate the terms of who they are
  • Cox, Laverne
I think life is way harder than anyone ever admits
  • Dar, Evelyn
The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.
  • de Gaulle, Charles
Yes, I’m cynical about history. It’s written by the victors, after all.
  • de Plume, Kathleen
My friends are my estate.
  • Dickinson, Emily
It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.
  • Dietrich, Marlene
Writing a book is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
  • Doctorow, E. L.
My feminism will be instersectional or it will be bullshit
  • Dzodan, Flavia
There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.
  • Eco, Umberto
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
  • Emerson, Ralph Waldo
One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives
  • Euripides
It's rotten work. Not to me. Not if its you
  • Euripides (trans. Anne Carson)
Stay afraid but do it anyway
  • Fisher, Carrie
Now some people will tell you that great writing cannot be learnt. Such people should be hit repeatedly on the nose until they promise not to talk nonsense any more.
  • Forsyth, Mark
argumentum ad baculum, which means threatening somebody with a stick until they agree with you.
  • Forsyth, Mark
In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life - It goes on
  • Frost, Robert
Love is something you do
  • Fulton, Carolyn R.
Suffering can bring one of two things - purification or bitterness
  • Fulton, Carolyn R.
No matter what life throws at you, make good art
  • Gaiman, Neil
Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
  • Gaiman, Neil
War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
  • Gelbart, Larry
  • Hooker, Richard
  • Prelutsky, Burt
In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
  • Gibran, Khalil
There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate
  • Grayson, Linda
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
  • Hanlon, Robert
Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.
  • Herodotus
Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell.
  • James, P.D.
You have to be curious about the world in which you live.
  • Kleon, Austin
Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art.
  • Le Guin, Ursula K.
we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art
  • Le Guin, Ursula K.
Never open a book with the weather.
  • Leonard, Elmore
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another - I thought I was the only one.
  • Lewis, C.S.
If you don’t know how your story ends, don’t worry. Press on, in faith and hope.
  • Mantel, Hilary
When you break through, not everyone close to you will enjoy your success. Accept this.
  • Mantel, Hilary
A wedding, after all, was just a day. A lovely day, to be sure, but still. And a marriage was built much more on trust and love than on ritual and paperwork.
  • McRae, Erin
  • Maltese, Racheline
He didn’t need priests or lawyers. He just needed the commitment of his own mind and heart, freely given and gladly received. Which he had. Which he did.
  • McRae, Erin
  • Maltese, Racheline
The greater danger is in setting our aim too low and achieving it
  • Michelangelo
Laws are a threat made by the dominant socioeconomic ethnic group in a given nation
  • Mulligan, Brennan Lee
Every disabled leader who dies takes a library of knowledge with them that they often didn't have the time to write down.
  • O'Toole, Corbett
Read, observe, listen intensely! — as if your life depended upon it.
  • Oates, Joyce Carol
Never attribute to the complex that which can be adequately explained by the simple.
  • Occam's Razor
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds
  • Oppenheimer, J. Robert
Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.
  • Orwell, George
Powerful men are the same wherever you go—the rules don’t apply to them.
  • Simper, SD
Don't confuse honours with achievement.
  • Smith, Zadie
Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet.
  • Smith, Zadie
All we have to decide is what to do with the time given to us
  • Tolkien, J.R.R.
If that's being queer, then we could do with a bit more queerness in these parts.
  • Tolkien, J.R.R.
Its a dangerous business, going out your door
  • Tolkien, J.R.R.
Pay heed to the tales of old wives.
  • Tolkien, J.R.R.
There are big ships and small ships. But the best ship of all is friendship.
  • Unknown
They don’t let you have anything whole if you don't follow the pattern
  • Waite, Olivia
When you didn’t have the vote, sometimes you had to take what power you could grasp with your own two hands.
  • Waite, Olivia
Nothing is more important than an unread library
  • Waters, John
Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined.
  • Waters, Sarah
I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
  • Whitman, Walt
Be ambitious for the work and not for the reward.
  • Winterson, Jeanette
There is no educational resource in the cosmos greater than a nerd who thinks you’re wrong.
  • Wiswell, John
Let us take down one of those old notebooks which we have all, at one time or another, had a passion for beginning.
  • Woolf, Virginia
This whole concept of women being docile and obedient is nothing but wishful thinking. Or why would you put so much effort into lying to us
  • Zhao, Xiran Jay
Failure is an event, not a person
  • Ziglar, Zig
5.1a A zettelkasten is tool for thinking and writing that leverages networked thought Fast, Sascha
Switch to thinking I have no choice but to write a piece of shit Harmon, Dan
Ursula Le Guin Earthsea Quote Le Guin, Ursula K.
2.1 All power structures can be escaped or overthrown, no matter how daunting the task may seem Le Guin, Ursula K.
We must beware of a certain craze for collecting which sometimes takes possession of those who make notes Sertillanges, A.G.