Institutio Oratoria

I know that some speakers make a practice of learning lists of synonyms by heart, in order that one word out of the several available may at once present itself to them, and that if, after using one word, they find that it is wanted again after a brief interval, they may be able to select another word with the same meaning and so avoid the necessity of repetition. But this practice is childish and involves thankless labour, while it is really of very little use, as it merely results in the assembly of a disorderly crowd of words, for the speaker to snatch the first that comes to hand.

On the contrary, discrimination is necessary in the acquisition of our stock of words; for we are aiming at true oratory, not at the fluency of a cheapjack. And we shall attain our aim by reading and listening to the best writers and orators, since we shall thus learn not merely the words by which things are to be called, but when each particular word is most appropriate.

For there is a place in oratory for almost every word, with the exception only of a very few, which are not sufficiently seemly. Such words are indeed often praised when they occur in writers of iambics [*](See §§ 59 and 96.) or of the old comedy,