Kusser, Commonplace book, Beinecke, Osborn Music Ms. 16, p. 228
For centuries, philosophers, scholars, lawyers, doctors, theologians, artists, and poets have gathered the memorable thoughts and words of others and organized them in commonplace books. These treasure houses of ancient and modern knowledge preserve quotations, anecdotes, maxims, jokes, verses, and magical spells, as well as astrological predictions, medicinal and culinary recipes, devotional texts, and mathematical tables–in short, subject matter of every stripe. As such, they have played an integral and abiding role in Western intellectual life throughout the ages. - Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Commonplace Books: Special Exhibition, 2001.