A Commonplace, A Common Space

New Year's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 01:09:00 +0000

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room,
drawing up a list of work to be done,
cracks to be patched.

Maybe this year, to balance the list,
we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.

-Ellen Goodman

A New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 19:01:00 +0000

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year.

It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose;
new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.

-G.K. Chesterton

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:04:00 +0000

Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve.

Middle age is when you're forced to.

-Bill Vaughnv

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 03:42:00 +0000

What is a soul?

It's like electricity-

we don't really know what it is,

but it's a force that can light a room.

Ray Charles

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:30:00 +0000

No matter how busy you may think you are,

you must find time for reading,

or surrender yourself

to self-chosen ignorance.

-Atwood H. Townsend

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 04:32:00 +0000

No American wildness that I know of is so dangerous as a city home "with all the modern conveniences".

One should go to the woods for safety, if nothing else.

-John Muir

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:47:00 +0000

We must be willing

to get rid of the life we’ve planned,

so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:42:00 +0000

I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:32:00 +0000

To what, then, must we aspire?

This, and this alone:

the just thought, the unselfish act,
the tongue that utters no falsehood,
the temper that greets each passing event
as something pre-destined, expected, and
emanating from the One source and origin.

-Marcus Aurelius

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:41:00 +0000

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable,
you disconnect yourself from what you truly want,
and all that is left is a compromise.

-Robert Fritz

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:43:00 +0000

Don't aim at success- the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.

For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as a byproduce of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.

Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success; you have to let it happen by not caring about it.

I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run- in the long run, I say!- success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.

Viktor E. Frankl
from Man's Search for Meaning

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 04:11:00 +0000

The maturity of man-
that means, to have acquired the seriousness that one had as a child at play.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 03:57:00 +0000

It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 03:44:00 +0000

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

-Marcel Proust

Your Children Are Not Your Children

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:31:00 +0000

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.
They come through you, but not from you.
And though they are with you, they do not belong to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies, but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them
But seek not to make them like you,
For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
As living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the universe
And he bends you with his might
That his arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be gladness,
For even as he loves the arrow that flies,
So he loves also the bow that is stable.

-Kahlil Gibran

What is commonplacing?

noreply@blogger.com (Robin) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:33:00 +0000

Commonplacing is the practice of entering literary excerpts and personal comments into a private journal, that is, into a commonplace book or, to use a 17th century synonym, a silva rerum ("a forest of things").

Typically the excerpts were regarded as exceptionally insightful or beautiful or as applicable to a variety of situations, and so as such they are often especially quotable. . .

-Norman Elliott Anderson,
Commonplacing in the Spiritual Traditions

All my life I've had a collection of journals, notebooks, binders of paper, boxes of paper, where I've copied over the bits and pieces of books, magazines, conversations and movies that seemed somehow essential to grab hold of, to record, for later use.

For the last year I've been trying to dig my way out from under this smothering paper pile of my past. Meanwhile, new quotes and passages pop up. It never ends.

So now, a new version of the commonplace: this blog.

A showcase of the clever turn of phrase; a platform for the profound. An island of inspiration. But also: the dumping ground of my sentimentality, the library of my mind. Tread carefully and enjoy.

But please notice, this is a commonplace in a common space. Please, please, please! If you have any favorite quotes please pass them along and I'll include them here.