I borrowed this term from Melville. It describes the quotations he cites at the beginning of Moby Dick. They are in the literary tradition of the Commonplace Book which was very popular in the 19th century….I have my own modest collection of such literary references….

“No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned…..A man in
a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company” Dr. Samuel Johnson

“If shit were gold…fishermen would be born without assholes.” Portuguese proverb

“Que sais-je?” Montaigne

“There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled,and wrought, and thought
with me-
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads-you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end
Some work of noble note, may yet be done…..” Tennyson, Ulysses

“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago-never mind how long precisely-having little or no money in my purse. and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principal to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off-then I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings toward the ocean with me.” Melville, Moby Dick

“Sing to me of the man, Muse, The man of twists and turns; driven time and again off course…” Homer, The Odyssey