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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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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
Gained
Swindler
Thieves
Swindlers
Wealth
Delinquency
Small
Rigorous
Law
Thief
Chance
Escaping
Better
Penalty
Great
Penalties

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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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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.
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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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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.
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Conservatism is the maintenance of conventions already in force.
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The walking stick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has utility as an evidence of leisure.
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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.
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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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Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.
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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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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 aesthetic serviceability of objects of beauty is not greatly nor universally heightened by possession.
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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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There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum.
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Invention is the mother of necessity.
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The possession of wealth confers honor it is an invidious distinction.
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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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