Quote

The visible imperfections of hand-wrought goods, being honorific, are accounted marks of superiority in point of beauty, or serviceability, or both.

Thorstein Veblen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Hands
Goods
Visible
Errors
Accounted
Mark
Wrought
Mistake
Imperfections
Hand
Marks
Beauty
Imperfection
Point
Superiority

More quotes by Thorstein Veblen

Image
Inherited aptitudes and traits of temperament count for quite as much as length of habituation in deciding what range of habits will come to dominate any individual's scheme of life.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
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.
Thorstein Veblen
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
Image
The requirement of conspicuous wastefulness is... present as a constraining norm selectively shaping and sustaining our sense of what is beautiful.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
Into the cultural and technological system of the modern world, the patriotic spirit fits like dust in the eyes and sand in the bearings. Its net contribution to the outcome is obscuration, distrust, and retardation at every point where it touches the fortunes of modern mankind.
Thorstein Veblen
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 has once become habitual.
Thorstein Veblen
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 penalty of the law.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
Invention is the mother of necessity.
Thorstein Veblen
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
Image
Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
The machine technology takes no cognizance of conventionally established rules of precedence it knows neither manners nor breeding and can make no use of any of the attributes of worth.
Thorstein Veblen
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 distress.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
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.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
Conservatism is the maintenance of conventions already in force.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
Only individuals with an aberrant temperament can in the long run retain their self-esteem in the face of the disesteem of their fellows.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
Beauty is commonly a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
English orthography satisfies all the requirements of the canons of reputability under the law of conspicuous waste. It is archaic, cumbrous, and ineffective its acquisition consumes much time and effort failure to acquire it is easy of detection.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
No one travelling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive.
Thorstein Veblen
Image
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.
Thorstein Veblen