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Thorstein Veblen Quotes

1857–1929 United States

Thorstein Bunde Veblen (30 July 1857 – 3 August 1929) was a Norwegian-American sociologist and economist and a leader of the Efficiency Movement, most famous for The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899).

United States
Academics
Agnostics
Economists
Non-fiction authors

Also known as: Veblen, Veblen, Thorstein

Random Thorstein Veblen quote

45 quotes

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

Veblen (1908)

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

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

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

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

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

Absentee Ownership (1923)

All ritual has a notable tendency to reduce itself to a rehearsal of formulas.

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

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

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

In the priestly life of all anthropomorphic cults the marks of a vicarious consumption of time are visible.

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

In point of substantial merit the law school belongs in the modern university no more than a school of fencing or dancing.

Veblen (1918)

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.

Absentee Ownership (1923)

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.

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

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.

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

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.

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

By habitually identifying beauty with reputability, it comes about that a beautiful article which is not expensive is accounted not beautiful.

The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899)

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.

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

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.

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

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.

The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899)

The need of conspicuous waste... stands ready to absorb any increase in the community's industrial efficiency or output of goods.

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

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.

The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Thorstein Veblen (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.