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Quote by S. I. Hayakawa

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S. I. Hayakawa
S. I. Hayakawa

S. I. Hayakawa was a prominent figure in American politics, serving as a United States Senator from California. Born on July 18, 1906, and passing away on February 27, 1992, Hayakawa made significant contributions to the field of linguistics and education before entering politics. His career spanned various roles, including professor, author, and public servant. more

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“The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialisation as regards the quality of the goods consumed. He consumes freely and of the best, in food, drink, narcotics, shelter, services, ornaments, apparel, weapons and accoutrements, amusements, amulets, and idols or divinities.”

“All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage.”

“The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods.”

“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.”