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. Thorstein Veblen More Quotes by Thorstein Veblen More Quotes From Thorstein Veblen It is always sound business to take any obtainable net gain, at any cost, and at any risk to the rest of the community. Thorstein Veblen risk community business There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum. Thorstein Veblen revulsion decorum respect With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper. Thorstein Veblen emulation business self In point of substantial merit the law school belongs in the modern university no more than a school of fencing or dancing. Thorstein Veblen dancing law school It frequently happens that an element of the standard of living which set out with being primarily wasteful, ends with becoming, in the apprehension of the consumer, a necessary of life. Thorstein Veblen elements becoming ends From the ownership of women the concept of ownership extends itself to include the products of their industry, and so there arises the ownership of things as well as of persons. Thorstein Veblen ownership wells arise In order to stand well in the eyes of the community, it is necessary to come up to a certain, somewhat indefinite, conventional standard of wealth. Thorstein Veblen eye success life It is much more difficult to recede from a scale of expenditure once adopted than it is to extend the accustomed scale in response to an accession of wealth. Thorstein Veblen scales wealth difficult 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 complacency possession self The superior excellence imputed to the book, which imitates the products of antique and obsolete processes, is conceived to be chiefly a superior utility in the aesthetic respect; but it is not unusual to find a well-bred book-lover insisting that the clumsier product is also more serviceable as a vehicle of printed speech. Thorstein Veblen speech excellence book 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 patriotic dust eye The early ascendancy of leisure as a means of reputability is traceable to the archaic distinction between noble and ignoble employments. Leisure is honourable and becomes imperative partly because it shows exemption from ignoble labour. Thorstein Veblen employment noble mean Beauty is commonly a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty. Thorstein Veblen instant-gratification gratification names It is a matter of course and of absolute necessity to the conduct of business, that any discretionary businessman must be free to deal or not to deal in any given case; to limit or withhold the equipment under his control, without reservation. Business discretion and business strategy, in fact, has no other means by to work out its aims. So that, in effect, all business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage. Thorstein Veblen work-out use mean 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. Thorstein Veblen portions eye class The first duty of an editor is to gauge the sentiment of his reader, and then to tell them what they like to believe. Thorstein Veblen editors believe firsts 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 machines technology use While the proximate ground of discrimination may be of another kind, still the pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and patent waste of time. Thorstein Veblen abiding patents principles The individual's habits of thought make an organic complex, the trend of which is necessarily in the direction of serviceability to the life process. When it is attempted to assimilate systematic waste or futility, as an end in life, into this organic complex, there presently supervenes a revulsion. Thorstein Veblen systematic trends waste 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 community names mean
