The visible imperfections of hand-wrought goods, being honorific, are accounted marks of superiority in point of beauty, or serviceability, or both. — Thorstein Veblen Beauty Copy Share Image
Labor wants also pride and joy in doing good work, a sense of making or doing something beautiful or useful - to… — Thorstein Veblen Beautiful Copy Share Image
The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development in man's moral nature. — Thorstein Veblen Addiction Copy Share Image
It frequently happens that an element of the standard of living which set out with being primarily wasteful, ends with becoming, in… — Thorstein Veblen Apprehension Copy Share Image
While the proximate ground of discrimination may be of another kind, still the pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
So soon as the possession of property becomes the basis of popular esteem, therefore, it becomes also a requisite to that complacency… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
Instead of investing in the goods as they pass between producer and consumer, as the merchant does, the businessman now invests in… — Thorstein Veblen Businessman Copy Share Image
It is always sound business to take any obtainable net gain, at any cost, and at any risk to the rest of… — Thorstein Veblen Business Copy Share Image
The early ascendancy of leisure as a means of reputability is traceable to the archaic distinction between noble and ignoble employments. Leisure… — Thorstein Veblen Ascendancy Copy Share Image
“Athletics have an obvious advantage over the classics for the purpose of leisure-class learning, since success as an athlete presumes, not only… — Thorstein Veblen Money Copy Share Image
The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing… — Thorstein Veblen Community Copy Share Image
These various habits of thought, or habitual expressions of life, are all phases of the single life sequence of the individual; therefore… — Thorstein Veblen Character Copy Share Image
English orthography satisfies all the requirements of the canons of reputability under the law of conspicuous waste. It is archaic, cumbrous, and… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
Into the cultural and technological system of the modern world, the patriotic spirit fits like dust in the eyes and sand in… — Thorstein Veblen Contribution Copy Share Image
The institution of a leisure class has emerged gradually during the transition from primitive savagery to barbarism; or more precisely, during the… — Thorstein Veblen Barbarism Copy Share Image
A standard of living is of the nature of habit. ...it acts almost solely to prevent recession from a scale of conspicuous… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
The requirement of conspicuous wastefulness is... present as a constraining norm selectively shaping and sustaining our sense of what is beautiful. — Thorstein Veblen Beautiful Copy Share Image
The corset is?a mutilation, undergone for the purpose of lowering the subject's vitalityand rendering her permanentlyand obviously unfit for work. — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
Loud dress becomes offensive to people of taste, as evincing an undue desire to reach and impress the untrained sensibilities of the… — Thorstein Veblen Clothes Copy Share Image
Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
It is much more difficult to recede from a scale of expenditure once adopted than it is to extend the accustomed scale… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
In aesthetic theory it might be extremely difficult, if not quite impracticable, to draw a line between the canon of classicism, or… — Thorstein Veblen Aesthetic Copy Share Image
In order to stand well in the eyes of the community, it is necessary to come up to a certain, somewhat indefinite,… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
