For the things worth remembering.

A digital commonplace book for the quotes, recipes, lyrics, and ideas you love. Write them down once, and Fernsage will bring them back to you regularly.

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Writing / Nice sentences

Nice sentences

Never lose your sense of wonder.
Guard it the way you would a small flame in bad weather.

— Yasumi Toyoda · feed it to your children

The analogy feels great because it describes how fragile our sense of wonder is and how hard it is to protect it.

I have been told that they signal health and that they will soon relent to the soil beneath summer's crushing embrace.

— Yasumi Toyoda · mushroom season

I've been reading very little this week and reconciling with nature instead—swimming, cycling, and applying large quantities of sunscreen

— Celine Nguyen · how to cultivate your own taste

Unlike "being outdoors", "reconciling with nature" feels so much softer and warmer.

Built for rereading, not hoarding

Hello there!

We all start with a good intention: I'll diligently take notes so that I can think and learn better. But our apps become graveyards of notes. We take notes, pile them up, and forget about them.

I faced the same challenge for years until I discovered commonplace books. The practice taught me to record ideas intentionally, organize them neatly, and reread them regularly. (You can read my public book here.)

As you will see below, this pratice isn't new. It goes as far back as two thousand years ago. Fernsage is modern software for this timeless practice. I kept the core of commonplace books and infuse it with technology, to do helpful things like resurfacing old notes and email them to you.

Questions? Just drop me an email.

Alfred

Alfred Lua, Founder, alfred@fernsage.com

Notes on a
Hands-On Life Alfred Lua

Notes on a Hands-On Life

Open the book

Long before notetaking apps

Marcus Aurelius

121–180 · Roman Emperor

Wrote nightly notes to himself, never meant for anyone else to read. They survived as Meditations, one of the most widely read books in history.

Leonardo da Vinci

1452–1519 · Polymath

Filled notebook after notebook for decades, sketches and observations he kept returning to and connecting across projects.

Michel de Montaigne

1533–1592 · Essayist

Kept a commonplace book of maxims copied from his reading, then mined it for the essays that followed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803–1882 · Essayist

Kept journals his entire adult life, then indexed them himself so old entries could resurface into new essays and lectures.

Virginia Woolf

1882–1941 · Writer

Kept a diary for over twenty-five years, rereading old entries as part of how she thought, remembered, and worked.

Made for commonplacing

Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

Charlie Munger Poor Charlie’s Almanack

Even if things don’t go as you hoped for, it’s fine as long as the process was fun

Himmel the Hero Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

Cited quote blocks

Built specifically for commonplacing, this custom block lets you capture quotes, authors, sources, and links.

Charlie Munger · 3 quotes

Invert, always invert.

Take a simple idea and take it seriously.

Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

An index page for quotes

Every quote you gather is also collected in an index page, so you can easily view the quotes by author or source.

Last seen June

A Short Guide to a Happy Life by Anna Quindlen

I read Anna Quindlen's book for the second time during my "life break" in 2026, as I reflected on how I really want to live my life. The book is really short; I typed it out in about an hour.

Resurfacing

You can review a set of 5 old notes with a click in the app or get them delivered to your inbox every day.

It's a little like leaving a note in the logbook on the trail that others will be hiking after you, a note that might give the next hiker a clue.

2 days ago

“leaving a note in the logbook on the trail”

This is one of the main reasons I write.

Margin notes

Add your own thinking beside a quote, without touching the original words.

Table of features

Organize notes with unlimited pages and subpages

Review notes in the app or in your inbox

Read safely, and edit deliberately

Find any page with a keystroke

Add margin notes like in a book

Save every edit, up to 50 past versions of a page

Turn your book, or just one topic, into a real website

Download your whole book as Markdown; nothing is locked in

One edition. Everything included.

$10/ month

Start a book

You won't be charged until the trial ends. Cancel anytime.

Ah, the curious one! If you want to become an early supporter and share your feedback, email me at alfred@fernsage.com for a lifetime 50% off.

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