“The walking stick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has utility as an evidence of leisure.”

— Thorstein Veblen , book The Theory of the Leisure Class

Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), p. 148

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Thorstein Veblen 41

American academic 1857–1929

Mordechai Ben-Ari (1948) Israeli computer scientist

Source: Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 3, “Words Scientists Don’t Use: At Least Not the Way You Do” (p. 46)

“It is better to be opposed by an enemy than to be adrift in meaninglessness, for the simulacrum of an enemy lends purpose to actions whose nihilism would otherwise be self-evident.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_4_the_barbarians.html (Autumn 2002).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

“Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

“You have a walking stick. Suppose it could walk by itself, and that it chose to walk away from you. […] It would no longer be a walking stick at all, only a stick that walked.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Volume 3, Ch. 13
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

“You can use a spear for a walking stick, but it will not change its nature.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Variant: He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.
Source: The Song of Achilles

“Do you believe it! Do you believe that the King of glory is present, and has been since 1874?… Behold, the King reigns! you are his publicity agents. Therefore advertise, advertise, advertise, the King and his kingdom.”

Joseph Franklin Rutherford (1869–1942) American judge

The Kingdom (1925)

“Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

“Public utility is often served by the injury of individuals.”

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597–1654) French author, best known for his epistolary essays

L'utilité publique se fait sou vent du dommage des particuliers.
Le Prince (1631), Chap. XVII.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 101.

“Don’t utilize utilize. Use use.”

Larry King (1933) American television and radio host

How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication

“It serves the purpose of not serving a purpose, surely quite a valid one.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

In an interview in Artforum, Nov. 83
Interviews

“The walking stick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has utility as an evidence of leisure.”

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Thorstein Veblen 41

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