“In the modern industrial communities… the apparatus of living has grown so elaborate and cumbrous… that the consumers of these things cannot make way with them in the required manner without help.”

— Thorstein Veblen, book The Theory of the Leisure Class

Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), p. 65-66

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Thorstein Veblen41

American academic 1857–1929

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“A man like me cannot live without a hobby-horse, a consuming passion — in Schiller's words a tyrant.”

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From a speech regarding the morality laws of Lex Julia. Livy's account states the speech was plagiarized by Augustus from another by Q. Metellus (Periochae 59.9). A fragment of this original speech (quoted) is preserved by A. Gellius (Noctes Atticae 1.6).
Original: (la) Si sine uxore pati possemus, Quirites, omnes ea molestia careremus; set quoniam ita natura tradidit, ut nec cum illis satis commode, nec sine illis ullo modo vivi possit, saluti perpetuae potius quam brevi voluptati consulendum est.
Source: [http://www.unrv.com/government/julianmarri

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[John M. Ziman, The Force of Knowledge: The Scientific Dimension of Society, Cambridge University Press, 1976, 0-521-09917-X, 119]

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“In the modern industrial communities… the apparatus of living has grown so elaborate and cumbrous… that the consumers of these things cannot make way with them in the required manner without help.”

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Thorstein Veblen41

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