A Common-place-Book is what a provident Poet cannot subsist without, for this proverbial Reason, that great Wits have short Memories; and whereas, on the other Hand, Poets being LYARS by Profession, ought to have good Memories; to reconcile these, a Book of this sort is in the Nature of a Supplemental Memory; or a Record of what occurs remarkable in every Day’s Reading or Conversation: There you enter not only your own Original Thoughts, (which, a hundred to one, are few and insignificant) but such of other Men as you think fit to make your own by entering them there. For take this for a Rule, when an Author is in your Books, you have the same Demand upon him for his Wit, as a Merchant has for your Money, when you are in his. ~Jonathan Swift, “A Letter of Advice to a Young Poet: Together With a Proposal for the Encouragement of Poetry in this Kingdom,” 1721TPVgb