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Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.

Thorstein Veblen

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Thorstein Veblen
Age: 72 †
Born: 1857
Born: July 30
Died: 1929
Died: August 3
Economist
Sociologist
University Professor
Writer
Manitowoc County
Wisconsin
Thorstein Bunde Veblen
Spirit
Nationalism
Human
Distress
Humans
Patriotism
Never
Service
Dissension
Institutions
Iniquity
Sin
Ceased
Politics
Conceived
Born
Bend

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The possession of wealth confers honor it is an invidious distinction.
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The office of the leisure class in social evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve what is obsolescent. This proposition is by no means novel it has long been one of the commonplaces of popular opinion.
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The corset is?a mutilation, undergone for the purpose of lowering the subject's vitalityand rendering her permanentlyand obviously unfit for work.
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So soon as the possession of property becomes the basis of popular esteem, therefore, it becomes also a requisite to that complacency which we call self-respect.
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Only individuals with an aberrant temperament can in the long run retain their self-esteem in the face of the disesteem of their fellows.
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The domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby, as compared with the éclat of that overt portion of their life that is carried on before the eyes of observers.
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Beauty is commonly a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.
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In point of substantial merit the law school belongs in the modern university no more than a school of fencing or dancing.
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Instead of investing in the goods as they pass between producer and consumer, as the merchant does, the businessman now invests in the processes of industry.
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Labor wants pride and joy in doing good work, a sense of making or doing something beautiful or useful - to be treated with dignity and respect as brother and sister.
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The institution of a leisure class has emerged gradually during the transition from primitive savagery to barbarism or more precisely, during the transition from a peaceable to a consistently warlike habit of life.
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In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.
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The thief or swindler who has gained great wealth by his delinquency has a better chance than the small thief of escaping the rigorous penalty of the law.
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