“The domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby, as compared with the éclat of that overt portion of their life that is carried on before the eyes of observers.”

Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), p. 112

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Thorstein Veblen 41
American academic 1857–1929

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General sources
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This popular quote seems to be a paraphrase of an exchange in The Last Continent:
Is it true that your life passes before your eyes before you die?'
YES.
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