The possession of wealth confers honor; it is an invidious distinction. — Thorstein Veblen Distinction Copy Share Image
Beauty is commonly a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty. — Thorstein Veblen Beauty Copy Share Image
Conservatism is the maintenance of conventions already in force. — Thorstein Veblen Conservatism Copy Share Image
All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage. — Thorstein Veblen Analysis Copy Share Image
A protective tariff is a typical conspiracy in restraint of trade. — Thorstein Veblen China Copy Share Image
Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. — Thorstein Veblen Conspicuous consumption Copy Share Image
The dog commends himself to our favor by affording play to our propensity for mastery — Thorstein Veblen Animal Copy Share Image
There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum. — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
The aesthetic serviceability of objects of beauty is not greatly nor universally heightened by possession. — Thorstein Veblen Aesthetic Copy Share Image
The first duty of an editor is to gauge the sentiment of his reader, and then to tell them what they like… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
Abstention from labor is the conventional evidence of wealth and is therefore the conventional mark of social standing. — Thorstein Veblen Abstention Copy Share Image
Inherited aptitudes and traits of temperament count for quite as much as length of habituation in deciding what range of habits will… — Thorstein Veblen Aptitude Copy Share Image
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 walking stick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
From the ownership of women the concept of ownership extends itself to include the products of their industry, and so there arises… — 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… — Thorstein Veblen Business 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
The abjectly poor, and all those person whose energies are entirely absorbed by the struggle for daily sustenance, are conservative because they… — Thorstein Veblen Complacency 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
“She lives with man on terms of equality, knows nothing of that relation of status which is the ancient basis of all… — Thorstein Veblen Equality Copy Share Image
As a matter of selective necessity, man is an agent. He is, in his own apprehension, a centre of unfolding impulsive activity-'teleological… — Thorstein Veblen Accomplishment Copy Share Image
The office of the leisure class in social evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve what is obsolescent. This proposition… — Thorstein Veblen Class Copy Share Image
The individual's habits of thought make an organic complex, the trend of which is necessarily in the direction of serviceability to the… — Thorstein Veblen Complexes Copy Share Image
The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical… — Thorstein Veblen Amulets Copy Share Image
The changing styles are the expression of a restless search for something which shall commend itself to our aesthetic sense; but as… — 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… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
It is a matter of course and of absolute necessity to the conduct of business, that any discretionary businessman must be free… — Thorstein Veblen Absolutes Copy Share Image
“The ceremonial differentiation of the dietary is best seen in the use of intoxicating beverages and narcotics. If these articles of consumption… — Thorstein Veblen Alcohol Copy Share Image
The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before. — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
The chief use of servants is the evidence they afford of the master's ability to pay. — Thorstein Veblen Ability Copy Share Image
No one travelling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive. — Thorstein Veblen Business Copy Share Image
In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes. — Thorstein Veblen Beautiful Copy Share Image
Only individuals with an aberrant temperament can in the long run retain their self-esteem in the face of the disesteem of their… — Thorstein Veblen Character Copy Share Image
The machine technology takes no cognizance of conventionally established rules of precedence; it knows neither manners nor breeding and can make no… — Thorstein Veblen Copy Share Image
In point of substantial merit the law school belongs in the modern university no more than a school of fencing or dancing. — Thorstein Veblen Dancing Copy Share Image
The domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby, as compared with the éclat of that overt portion of their life that… — Thorstein Veblen Class 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
