11 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2023
    1. Posted byu/A_Dull_Significance6 hours agoWhat’s something you do with your Zettelkasten that you’re “not supposed to do”? .t3_11awtrx._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; } questionI think the title says it all.There are lots of ideas about things you should, or shouldn’t, do with you zettelkasten. What is something that works for you that you’re “not supposed to do”?For me, it’s the idea you shouldn’t keep quotes. I have a section (56/2) which is mainly a collection of different quotes on the topic of writing complexity and ease of comprehension. Some are for complexity, some against. Some place the burden on the writer, some on the reader, some mutual. I find it fruitful.What about you? What “rule” do you break?

      Who made up this supposed rule against quotes! Are they not aware that quotes, particularly of sententiae, are some of the most excerpted and transmitted bits of knowledge in the entire Western canon? Without quotes, the entire tradition of note taking would probably not exist. Of course properly quoting is a sub-art in and of itself within rhetoric and the ars excerpendi.

      A zettelkasten with no quotes— by definition— shouldn't carry the name.

  2. Oct 2022
    1. laudator temporis acti

      laudator temporis acti translates as "a praiser of times past"

      Calls to mind:

      Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda, vel quod quaerit et inventis miser abstinet ac timet uti, vel quod res omnis timide gelideque ministrat, dilator, spe longus, iners avidusque futuri, difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti se puero, castigator censorque minorum. —Horace's Ars Poetica (line 173)

      Many ills encompass an old man, whether because he seeks gain, and then miserably holds aloof from his store and fears to use it, or because, in all that he does, he lacks fire and courage, is dilatory and slow to form hopes, is sluggish and greedy of a longer life, peevish, surly, given to praising the days he spent as a boy, and to reproving and condemning the young. (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough)

      In Horace's version he's talking about a old curmudgeon and the phrase often has a pejorative tinge. It generally is used to mean someone who defends earlier periods of history ("the good old days") usually prior to their own lives and which they haven't directly experienced, as better than the present.


      Compare this with the sentiment behind Donald J. Trump's "Make America Great Again". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_America_Great_Again

      The end of the passage also has historical precedent and hints of "You kids get off my lawn!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_kids_get_off_my_lawn!

  3. Jun 2022
    1. Verum ipsum factum (“We only know what we make”)—Giambattista Vico, Italian philosopher
    2. In his book A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books, John Lockesimilarly advised

      Why footnote this instead of giving it a nod and an actual reference as sententiae?

  4. Apr 2022
    1. On one hand, florilegia diffused selections from and helped to reinforce a canon of authors who were otherwise well known in the Middle Ages, starting with the Bible and church fathers and emphasizing ancients like Ovid, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Juvenal, Lucan, and Seneca (in descending order of citations).105

      In descending order of citations following the traditional Bible and church fathers florilegia included sententiae from classical writers including Ovid, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Juvenal, Lucan, and Seneca.

      cross reference: 105. Munk Olsen (1980), 153–54.

      What time period and corpus of work does this accounting include?

  5. Feb 2022
    1. Be extra selective withquotes – don’t copy them to skip the step of really understanding

      what they mean.

      When quoting material it should have great phrasing and reasonable stand-alone meaning. Preferably the source or person being quoted should have stature or gravitas with respect to the idea at hand. Quotes should recall the classical idea of sententiae as imagined by Aristotle and Quintilian and seen throughout the commonplace book tradition.

  6. Jan 2022
    1. In this spirit he castigated Alexander Harden as "an enemy of the spirit that was fed by a small mind with a large card index," taking up what appears to have been a common criticism of the author, who because of his style that relied overly much on quotations [Die Fackel, Heft 360-62 (1912)].

      Some of this critique relates to my classification about the sorts of notes that one takes. Some are more important or valuable than others.

      Some are for recall and later memory, some may be collection of ideas, but the highest seems to be linking different ideas and contexts together to create completely new and innovative ideas. If one is simply collecting sententiae and spewing them back out in reasonable contexts, this isn't as powerful as nurturing one's ideas to have sex.

  7. Nov 2021
    1. On the other hand, paremiologists seldom specify "definitions"-much less ori- gins-of proverbial expressions that they collect, for the simple reason that so little can be known with certainty.

      Paremiology (from Greek παροιμία (paroimía) 'proverb, maxim, saw') is the collection and study of proverbs.

      Paremiography is the collection of proverbs.

  8. Aug 2021
    1. This now brings diversity to the table. It is deliberately interdisciplinary. Notes from poets interact with notes from scientists and notes from wise elders.

      This is the closest phrase I've seen in the zettelkasten space that ties back directly into the commonplace book tradition of sententiae.

      Kudos to the author for this.

      I like the fact that he highlights the diversity of thought he's getting by plumbing the depths of a variety of types of writers and creators. Very reminiscent of another early commonplace book tradition of the bee analogy.