"Besides servants... there is at least one other class of persons whose garb assimilates them to the class of servants and shows many of the features that go to make up the womanliness of woman's dress. This is the priestly class. Priestly vestments show, in accentuated form, all the features that have been shown to be evidence of a servile status and a vicarious life. Even more strikingly than the everyday habit of the priest, the vestments, properly so called, are ornate, grotesque, inconvenient, and, at least ostensibly, comfortless to the point of distress. The priest is at the same time expected to refrain from useful effort and, when before the public eye, to present an impassively disconsolate countenance, very much after the manner of a well-trained domestic servant."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p.182
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
The Theory of the Leisure Class
308 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by The Theory of the Leisure Class →
Related Quotes
"The means through which a change is wrought in men's apprehension of what is good and right is in large part the pres…"
"The institution of ownership has begun with the ownership of persons, primarily women. The incentives to acquiring su…"
"In modern civilized communities... the norm of reputability imposed by the upper class extends its coercive influence…"
"Some... higher wants, as for instance the habitual use of certain stimulants, or the need of salvation (in the eschat…"
"In aesthetic theory it might be extremely difficult, if not quite impracticable, to draw a line between the canon of …"
"The possession of wealth, which was at the outset valued simply as an evidence of efficiency, becomes, in popular app…"
"Chief among the honorable employments in any feudal community is warfare; and priestly service is commonly second to …"
"At an earlier... stage of barbarism, the leisure class is found in a less differentiated form. Neither the class dist…"
"If we go a step back of this exemplary barbarian culture, into the lower stages of barbarism, we no longer find the l…"
"Altered conditions may increase the facility of life for the group as a whole, but the redistribution will usually re…"