The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.
Thorstein VeblenRead
In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.
Interpretation
Leisure is valued for its intrinsic beauty and its positive impact on society.
Thorstein Veblen's quote reflects the idea that a life of leisure is not only beautiful but also honors and elevates individuals in the eyes of civilized society. It suggests that the ability to engage in leisure activities is seen as a mark of social status and a reflection of one's success and refinement in a civilized context.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of work-life balance.
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.
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.
With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper.
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.
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.
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices.
When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process.
This life is not real. I conquered the world and it did not bring me satisfaction.
Without question, we need to be informed of the happenings in the world. But modern communication brings into our homes a drowning cascade of the violence and misery of the worldwide human race. There comes a time when we need to find some peaceful spiritual renewal.
There are many, many nouns for the act of looking - a glance, a glimpse, a peep - but there's no noun for the act of listening. In general, we don't think primarily about sound. So I have a different perspective on the world; I can construct soundscapes that have an effect on people, but they don't know why. It's a sort of subterfuge.
I'm always looking for things that are so incredibly present that they become invisible.
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