For more than a decade, I’ve been saving things I read that motivate me, surprise me, anger me, or just seem beautiful. These went into Apple Notes and later into what became a 200+ page document. I now have a quotes collection on this site where you can actually browse them.
There are over a thousand entries so far: short lines, long passages, poems, and scenes. Some are things I agree with. Others are things I want to think about.
You can search the collection, filter by subject, author, work, or length, and shuffle through it. Each quote has its own link. Longer passages open in a reader, with translations and fuller versions where I have them. There’s also a topic map and related quotes, so you can follow an idea across things written by very different people.
Getting the old notes into this shape was most of the work. I had copied passages at different times, sometimes with a source, sometimes with a nearby link, and sometimes with neither. A paragraph might be split across several entries. Something that looked like a good standalone quote might turn out to be the setup for an argument going in the opposite direction.
AI made it feasible to classify the collection and investigate attribution across thousands of entries. I used it to suggest topics and rankings, look for sources, and help repair typos and formatting. Finding a plausible author is easy; finding a source that actually contains the passage takes more care. The site distinguishes checked sources from unverified credits, and some passages still have no attribution.
I also built a local review app. It shows one passage at a time, with separate decisions for whether I’d put it on a wall and whether I want it in the public collection. Those are different questions: something can be worth reading without being something I’d want hanging over my desk. I can select a shorter wall version while keeping the full passage.
The app has queues for missing context, typos, formatting, and translations. Review notes sit beside the quote, and keyboard shortcuts make it easier to work through a batch. The underlying collection stays in a spreadsheet, with the original notebooks and a record of the changes. Only entries I’ve selected for the quotes feed get exported to the website.
The collection is still a work in progress. There are more passages to review and sources to find, and I’m still reading. Have a look, and if you recognize a missing source or catch an error, please let me know.