“Where the emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words.”

Robert Frost

I love this quote for a number of reasons.

Let me focus on two.

First is I do love words and I truly envy people who know how to take a seemingly mixed bag of words and put them together in a way that makes people laugh or cry or just “feel something.”

Second is something practical. I tell people in business that more great ideas, more great thoughts, have died because they have not been articulated well then anything other reason in the world (more than even process or scared people).

Great thoughts are meaningless if no one can understand them.

The most powerful thoughts and ideas in the world have typically been captured in some words that have clearly communicated the thought behind it and evoked some sort of emotiochoose the right wordn.

In the end.

You have to find the words or the best thought you have ever had will die.

That is almost a postulate in life.

So.

With all that said and with full understanding that I will never be able to use words a well as Robert Frost (or maybe even Jack Frost) I have this book I keep with me everywhere I go.

Choose the Right Word by S. I. Hayakawa.

A friend just reminded me of how great that book is for those of us who challenge ourselves to use the right, or best, words whenever we can. It is the bible of wordsmanship.