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In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.

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
Eyes
Eye
Beautiful
Ennobling
Men
Civilised
Life
Leisure
Consequences
Consequence
Inspire

More quotes by Thorstein Veblen

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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
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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.
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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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Abstention from labor is the conventional evidence of wealth and is therefore the conventional mark of social standing.
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Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.
Thorstein Veblen
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There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum.
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In aesthetic theory it might be extremely difficult, if not quite impracticable, to draw a line between the canon of classicism, or regard for the archaic, and the canon of beauty.
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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.
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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.
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Beauty is commonly a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.
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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.
Thorstein Veblen
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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
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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.
Thorstein Veblen
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Conservatism is the maintenance of conventions already in force.
Thorstein Veblen
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The possession of wealth confers honor it is an invidious distinction.
Thorstein Veblen
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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
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Invention is the mother of necessity.
Thorstein Veblen
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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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The corset is?a mutilation, undergone for the purpose of lowering the subject's vitalityand rendering her permanentlyand obviously unfit for work.
Thorstein Veblen
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Socialism is a dead horse.
Thorstein Veblen