Top Thorstein Veblen Quotes

Thorstein Veblen Biography

Thorstein Bunde Veblen (/ˈθɔːrstaɪn ˈvɛblən/; born Torsten Bunde Veblen; July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929), a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist, became famous as a witty critic of capitalism.

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Thorstein Veblen Quotes

The first duty of an editor is to gauge the sentiment of his reader, and then to tell them what they like to believe.

Believe, Editor, Editors, Gauges, Reader, Tell

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.

Beautiful, Brother, Inspirational, Labor, Respect, Useful

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.

Bend, Born, Dissension, Patriotism, Politics, Spirit

The requirement of conspicuous wastefulness is. . . present as a constraining norm selectively shaping and sustaining our sense of what is beautiful.

Beautiful, Norm, Requirement, Requirements, Sense

The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialisation as regards the quality of the goods consumed. He consumes freely and of the best, in food, drink, narcotics, shelter, services, ornaments, apparel, weapons and accoutrements, amusements, amulets, and idols or divinities.

Gentleman, Idols, Physical, Quality, Staff

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.

Absolute, Effect, Free, Matter, Mean, Work Out

Abstention from labor is the conventional evidence of wealth and is therefore the conventional mark of social standing.

Abstention, Mark, Social, Standing, Wealth

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.

Life, Organic, Systematic, Trends, Waste

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.

Arise, Arises, Industry, Ownership, Products, Wells

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.

Law, Effort, Acquisition, Cumbrous, Acquire

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.

Hands, Walking Sticks, Effort, Leisure, Serves

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.

Basis, Becomes, Complacency, Popular, Possession, Self

In the rare cases where it occurs, a failure to increase one's visible consumption when the means for an increase are at hand is felt in popular apprehension to call for explanation, and unworthy motives of miserliness are imputed.

Consumption, Hand, Hands, Increase, Mean, Occurs

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.

Archaic, Distinction, Early, Employment, Mean, Noble

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.

Accustomed, Difficult, Recede, Response, Scales, Wealth

There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum.

Breach, Decorum, Respect, Revulsion, Things

The possession of wealth confers honor; it is an invidious distinction.

Distinction, Honor, Invidious, Possession, Wealth

The abjectly poor, and all those person whose energies are entirely absorbed by the struggle for daily sustenance, are conservative because they cannot afford the effort of taking thought for the day after tomorrow; just as the highly prosperous are conservative because they have small occasion to be discontented with the situation as it stands today.

Day, Effort, Energy, Occasion, Struggle, Taking

These various habits of thought, or habitual expressions of life, are all phases of the single life sequence of the individual; therefore a habit formed in response to a given stimulus will necessarily affect the character of the response made to other stimuli. A modification of human nature at any one point is a modification of human nature as a whole.

Character, Expression, Formed, Human, Nature, Single Life

It is always sound business to take any obtainable net gain, at any cost, and at any risk to the rest of the community.

Business, Community, Risk, Sound, Net

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Thorstein Veblen Biography

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