The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.
Thorstein VeblenRead
The visible imperfections of hand-wrought goods, being honorific, are accounted marks of superiority in point of beauty, or serviceability, or both.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Imperfections in handmade items add character and beauty, enhancing their value.
Thorstein Veblen suggests that the flaws inherent in handmade goods distinguish them from mass-produced items, elevating their beauty and functionality. This perspective honors the craftsmanship involved, as imperfections reveal authenticity and human effort, ultimately making these items more desirable.
Themes
ImperfectionsBeautyCraftsmanshipHandmadeAuthenticity
In practice
Example use cases
In an art gallery discussing the value of handmade pottery.
More from Thorstein Veblen
All quotes βConspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.
Thorstein VeblenRead
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.
Thorstein VeblenRead
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.
Thorstein VeblenRead
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.
Thorstein VeblenRead
In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.
Thorstein VeblenRead
Similar quotes
By definition, poetry works with qualities and dynamics that mainstream society is reluctant to face head-on. It's an interesting phenomenon that by necessity, poetry is just below the radar.
David WhyteRead
There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts.
John F. KennedyRead
The job of a storyteller is to speak the truth. But what we feel most deeply canβt be spoken in words alone. At this level, only images connect. And here, story becomes symbol; symbol is myth. And myth is truth.
Alan GarnerRead
There's racist casting, and there is normal casting. Normal casting, to me, is a process that strives for representation and, in many cases, strives to simply portray the world as it actually is instead of as falsely non-inclusive. And sadly, sometimes that involves removing the whitewash that exists on history.
Shonda RhimesRead
Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain.
Christopher McdougallRead
I like films that take their time a little bit more and don't show you all of their cards right away, characters that are conflicted and contradicting and seem one way at first and then suddenly turn out to be something else.
Oscar IsaacRead