Thorstein veblen

Invention is the mother of necessity.

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

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

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

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

The dog commends himself to our favor by affording play to our propensity for mastery.

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

In order to stand well in the eyes of the community, it is necessary to come up to a certain, somewhat indefinite, conventional standard of wealth.

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

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