Conservatism, being an upper-class characteristic, is decorous; and conversely, innovation, being a lower-class phenomenon, is vulgar. ...Innovation is bad form. — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
The taste of the more recent accessions to the leisure class proper and of the middle and lower classes still requires a pecuniary beauty to supplement the aesthetic beauty, even in those objects which are primarily admired for the beauty… — Thorstein Veblen 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 dissension and… — 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 regard for… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development in man's moral nature. — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
A protective tariff is a typical conspiracy in restraint of trade. — 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 in response… — Thorstein Veblen 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 expenditure that… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic… — Thorstein Veblen 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 the apprehension… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage. — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
“She lives with man on terms of equality, knows nothing of that relation of status which is the ancient basis of all distinctions of… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
The thief or swindler who has gained great wealth by his delinquency has a better chance than the small thief of escaping the rigorous… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
The dog commends himself to our favor by affording play to our propensity for mastery — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
