Thorstein Veblen

"Leadership is the art of inspiring others toward common purpose."

"Work is the essence of human dignity and value."

"Dreams are the seeds from which reality grows."

"Humor is the antidote to despair and hopelessness."

"Beauty dwells in unexpected places for those with eyes to see."

"Death reminds us to live with purpose and intention."

"Perseverance transforms impossible challenges into eventual victories."

"Gratitude multiplies the joy inherent in living."

"Patience is the virtue that permits us to grow."

"Kindness is its own reward and greatest strength."

"Imagination is the gateway to new worlds and possibilities."

"Adventure calls to those with the spirit to answer."

"The conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure."

"Invention is the mother of necessity."

"The instinct of workmanship is the most fundamental and far-reaching of the economic motives."

"Absentee ownership is the root of industrial inefficiency."

"In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power; the wealth and power must be put in evidence."

"The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before."

"Modern scientific inquiry has been concerned with the orderly sequence of phenomena rather than with their causal nexus."

"The accumulation of wealth at the upper extreme of the pecuniary scale is a matter of statistical regularity."

"Pecuniary emulation drives the standard of decent expenditure ever upward."

"The selective process is at work everywhere in human society, shaping institutions to serve the ends of those in power."

"Industrial efficiency requires habitual familiarity with the processes and a familiarity with the requirements of mechanical detail."

"Distinction through excellence in work is less prized than distinction through conspicuous idleness."

"The business of business is business, but the business of society is something more."

"An intellectual cannot be held to account for what he does not understand."

"The machine technology of the modern world is a most efficient engine for the accumulation of wealth and the perpetuation of privilege."

"Custom and convention are the most enduring of all institutional forms."

"The higher leisure class functions as a set of prestige benchmarks for the rest of society."

"Economic life is governed by cultural habits rather than by rational calculation."