Seneca · On style as a mirror of character

Letters 114.10

When the mind has acquired the habit of scorning the usual things of life, and regarding as mean that which was once customary, it begins to hunt for novelties in speech also; now it summons and displays obsolete and old-fashioned words; now it coins even unknown words or misshapes them; and now a bold and frequent metaphorical usage is made a special feature of style, according to the fashion which has just become prevalent.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 114.10, translated by Richard Mott Gummere