77 Quotes by 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.

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.

Socialism is a dead horse.

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

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

No one travelling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive.

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.

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 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.