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.

In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.

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. In an industrial community this propensity for emulation expresses itself in pecuniary emulation; and this, so far as regards the Western civilized communities of the present, is virtually equivalent to saying that it expresses itself in some form of conspicuous waste.

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

Instead of investing in the goods as they pass between producer and consumer, as the merchant does, the businessman now invests in the processes of industry.

The dog commends himself to our favor by affording play to our propensity for mastery

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