A Quote by Thorstein Veblen

The corset is?a mutilation, undergone for the purpose of lowering the subject's vitalityand rendering her permanentlyand obviously unfit for work.

Thorstein Veblen

Quote Topics

Corset Her Lowering Mutilation Obviously Purpose Rendering Subject Unfit Work

Quote Author

Thorstein Veblen
American - Economist
July 30, 1857 - August 3, 1929

So proper for a circus girl," Mme. Padva says with with a gleam in her eye. "We shall have to loosen those corset laces if we intend to keep you an intimate dinner company." "I expected the corset unlacing would take place after dinner," Celia says mildly, earning a chorus of laughter. "We shall keep Miss Bowen as intimate company regardless of the state of her corset," Chandresh says. "Make a note of that," he adds, waving a hand at Marco. "Miss Bowen's corset is duly noted, sir," Marco replies, and the laghter bubbles over the table again.

Erin Morgenstern

A rich woman seems to have all her banknotes about her, guarding her virtue, like a cuirass, in the lining of her corset.

Gustave Flaubert

With Daphne half the work was done for me once I was cinched into that corset. Immediately, because of the way the corset is fitted, your posture is held back, which means your head's up, and you are moving in a certain way.

Phoebe Dynevor

After all, [female genital mutilation is] a key pillar of institutional misogyny in Islam: its entire purpose is to deny women sexual pleasure. True, a lot of us hapless western men find we deny women sexual pleasure without even trying, but we don't demand genital mutilation to guarantee it. On such slender distinctions does civilization rest.

Mark Steyn

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.

John Berger

In a play, certainly, the subject is of more importance than in any other work of art. Infelicity, triviality, vagueness of subject, may be outweighed in a poem, a novel, or a picture, by charm of manner, by ingenuity of execution; but in a drama the subject is of the essence of the work-it is the work. If it is feeble, the work can have no force; if it is shapeless, the work must be amorphous.

Henry James

The Federal Reserve system obviously doesn't work anymore - they keep lowering the federal discount rate, and all that happens is that the banks are making a fortune, and the old folks' CDs are getting chewed up.

Molly Ivins

I am not going to box unfit, obviously.

George Groves

For 'Rosa Luxemburg,' I read everything by and about her, but the first time I was stuck in that corset, I got an understanding of her that I'd never had before.

Barbara Sukowa

She wore tight corsets to give her a teeny waist - I helped her lace them up - but they had the effect of causing her to faint. Mom called it the vapors and said it was a sign of her high breeding and delicate nature. I thought it was a sign that the corset made it hard to breathe.

Jeannette Walls

I had a hard time watching "Wolf Creek." It is a film with one clear purpose: To establish the commercial credentials of its director by showing his skill at depicting the brutal tracking, torture and mutilation of screaming young women. When the killer severs the spine of one of his victims and calls her "a head on a stick," I wanted to walk out of the theater and keep on walking.

Roger Ebert

Le mot 'psychologie'est un de ceux qu'aucun auteur d'aujourd'hui ne peut entendre prononcer a' son sujet sans baisser les yeux et rougir. The word 'psychology' is one that no author today can hear said about her work without lowering her eyes and blushing.

Nathalie Sarraute

It's a corset design making me look very, very slim and trim. I call it a corset dress. Very Hollywood glamour with the silk.

Serena Williams

To put on a corset properly is as much of an art as to make a corset properly.

Anna Held

Harriet Levin [is] a shining poet in her generation.... The dynamics of her language and her vigorous voice distinguish all her poems. Levin's fearless willingness to tackle any subject combines with her subtle intelligence to produce a rare reading experience, the moving, psychologically sophisticated and intriguing work of a poet with both guts and craft