“I have a commonplace book for facts, and another for poetry, but I find it difficult always to preserve the vague distinction which I had in mind, for the most interesting and beautiful facts are so much the more poetry and that is their success. They are translated from earth to heaven. I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant---perhaps transmuted into the substance of the human mind—I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all.”

• Thoreau