Thorstein Veblen - The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

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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. But it is also a weapon and it meets a felt need of barbarian man on that ground.

Thorstein Veblen

Loud dress becomes offensive to people of taste, as evincing an undue desire to reach and impress the untrained sensibilities of the vulgar.

Thorstein Veblen

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.

Thorstein Veblen

A standard of living is of the nature of habit.... it acts almost solely to prevent recession from a scale of conspicuous expenditure that has once become habitual.

Thorstein Veblen

Whatever approves itself to us on any ground at the outset, presently comes to appeal to us as a gratifying thing in itself; it comes to rest in our habits of thought as substantially right.

Thorstein Veblen

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

Thorstein Veblen