A commonplace is a traditional self-education tool: as you read, grab a notebook. Write down things that embody Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Write down notable quotes, with or without your own thoughts about them. Write down the questions you have as a result of the text you are reading. You will find the book becomes a record of your own growth, and it becomes a touchstone for memory of things you have studied in the past. These are a selection of the passages that I've included in my commonplace book this month:
Do it immediately;
Do it with prayer;
Do it reliantly,
Casting all care;
Do it with reverence,
Tracing His Hand,
Who placed it before thee with
Earnest command.
Stayed on Omnipotence,
Safe 'neath His wing,
Leave all resultings,
Do the next thing.
-Said to be an Old Saxon poem
"... instead of a congerie [collection] of faculties, a single subjective activity, attention; and again, there is , "one common factor in psychical activity, that is attention." My personal addition is that attention is unfailing, prompt and steady when matter is presented suitable to a child's intellectual requirements, IF the presentation be made with the conciseness, directness, and simplicity proper to literature.
-Charlotte Mason 6:17
"You can never know everything," Lan said quietly, "and part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway."
-Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan, p501
The fact was I had asked the Lord to lead me in the right way for my best good and the way to fit me for a place in His kingdom. He had told me how to go and I must follow in the path He dictated, and that's all there was to it.
-Martha Cragun Cox, quoted in All That Was Promised, p69
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