Famous quotes containing the words conspicuous consumption, term, conspicuous and/or consumption:
“Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.”
—Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929)
“Most literature on the culture of adolescence focuses on peer pressure as a negative force. Warnings about the “wrong crowd” read like tornado alerts in parent manuals. . . . It is a relative term that means different things in different places. In Fort Wayne, for example, the wrong crowd meant hanging out with liberal Democrats. In Connecticut, it meant kids who weren’t planning to get a Ph.D. from Yale.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Linguistically, and hence conceptually, the things in sharpest focus are the things that are public enough to be talked of publicly, common and conspicuous enough to be talked of often, and near enough to sense to be quickly identified and learned by name; it is to these that words apply first and foremost.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Daily life is governed by an economic system in which the production and consumption of insults tends to balance out.”
—Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934)