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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.

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
Line
Impracticable
Theory
Archaic
Quite
Canon
Lines
Aesthetic
Beauty
Extremely
Difficult
Draw
Might
Draws
Regard
Classicism

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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 aesthetic serviceability of objects of beauty is not greatly nor universally heightened by possession.
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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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The requirement of conspicuous wastefulness is... present as a constraining norm selectively shaping and sustaining our sense of what is beautiful.
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No one travelling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive.
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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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Beauty is commonly a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.
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Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman 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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Conservatism is the maintenance of conventions already in force.
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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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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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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 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.
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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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Socialism is a dead horse.
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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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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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