Quotes by Thorstein Veblen

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.

The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development in man’s moral nature.

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.