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

Invention is the mother of necessity.

The first duty of an editor is to gauge the sentiment of his reader, and then to tell them what they like to believe.

No one travelling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive.

Abstention from labor is the conventional evidence of wealth and is therefore the conventional mark of social standing.

The machine technology takes no cognizance of conventionally established rules of precedence; it knows neither manners nor breeding and can make no use of any of the attributes of worth.

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.