Thorstein Veblen

“Invention is the mother of necessity.”

“Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.”

“The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.”

“The class="highlight">leisure class is in great measure sheltered from the stress of those economic exigencies which prevail in any modern, highly organized industrial community.”

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

“The chief use of servants is the evidence they afford of the master's ability to pay.”

“The institution of a leisure class is the outgrowth of an early discrimination between employments, according to which some employments are worthy and others unworthy.”

“All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to a judicious use of sabotage.”

“The basis of a democratic state is liberty.”

“Conservatism is the maintenance of conventions already in force.”

“The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development of the man's moral nature.”

“It is the characteristic of man to do something, and to do it to a purpose.”

“The characteristic feature of the modern economy is the prevalence of business enterprise.”

“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.”

“The canons of pecuniary decency require a strict adherence to the schedule of conspicuous waste.”