The bee plunders the flowers here and there, but afterwards they make of them honey, which is all theirs; it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Even so with the pieces borrowed from others; he will transform and blend them to make a work that is all his own, to wit, his judgment — The Complete Essays of Michel de Montaigne

for instance, he accused Mon-taigne of having “used up” a quote from Lucretius by employing it to illus-trate a minor paradox, rather than saving it, as Blumenberg deemed“compulsory,” for his major argument regarding the failure of states. 3

Montaigne once teased the writer Erasmus, who was known for his dedication to reading scholarly works, by asking with heavy sarcasm “Do you think he is searching in his books for a way to become better, happier, or wiser?” In Montaigne’s mind, if he wasn’t, it was all a waste.

In 1580 Montaigne declared that "a good memory is generally joined to a weak judgment."

Notes, which are a sort of external memory, a “paper memory” Montaigne called them, must bear a very small proportion to reading; but they can cover more ground than memory, they can supply for it, and so take the strain off it and help our work in a measure that is hard to assign.

‘Assert nothing audaciously, deny nothing frivolously.’

Zweig continues: “This weakness, which Montaigne endlessly bemoans, is in fact his strength. An inability to remain fixed at a certain point allows him always to go further. With him nothing is ever set in stone. He never stops at the boundary of past experiences; he does not rest on his empiricism; he amasses no capital; before properly consuming them his spirit must acquire experiences over and again. So his life becomes an operation of perpetual renewal: ‘Unremittingly we begin our lives anew.’

For example, I will be keeping my own Commonplace Book this semester, and because of my particular research interests I may include headings such as “Cosmetics,” “Perfume,” “Odors,” and “Cannibalism.”

... @ChrisAldrich Have you read Montaigne? Regarding: I love this outline/syllabus for creating a commonplace book (as a potential replacement for a term paper). I’d be curious to see those who are using http://Hypothes.is as a social ...