Every day “A.Word.A.Day” lands in my email inbox. Anu Garg and team produce this and other resources as part of Wordsmith.org:

If you don’t already subscribe, I highly recommend this daily dose of vocabulary-building content. Each week follows a theme (last week: words derived from body parts), and each message offers a word followed by its pronunciation, meaning, etymology, and usage examples. The format is stark, clean, simple—putting full focus on words and how we can use them.

That’s exactly why I started reading Anu’s messages: I wanted to learn new words and see interesting terms used in extraordinary ways. Now, many years after subscribing to this daily email feed, I still get those benefits.

But in the past couple of years, I have come to value a different aspect of Anu’s content. Now, I read his messages from the bottom up … because at end of each email, under the heading “A Thought for Today,” he includes a quotation.

The range of these quotations is impressive. I’ve been delighted to read many of my favorite quotes. Even more, I have discovered voices and wisdom I may never have encountered, if not for A.Word.A.Day.

Today, while answering email and deleting old messages, I discovered three A.Word.A.Day messages I’d been saving, just for these quotes:

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. -Christina Rossetti, poet (1830-1894)

Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

You become a writer by writing. It is a yoga. -R.K. Narayan, novelist (1906-2001)

Do you see a thread that ties these together? I certainly do. I have been holding on to these words that urge me to begin, to act, to write. The moment that realization took hold, I started writing this post. And tomorrow I will write some more …

… after I read A.Word.A.Day.