The vulgar display of wealth which cheapens our life so much, the desire to seek social distinction by a scale of expenditure which in itself gives no joy, have in our time accentuated the longing for wealth out of all proportion.
"Psychology and Social Sanity"
Hugo Münsterberg
Whoever denies the people cheapens himself, and gives to the world the shameful spectacle of apostasy.
"The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters"
George Sand, Gustave Flaubert Translated by A.L. McKensie
The railway, on the other hand, is no immediate cause of pleasure, but it cheapens goods by enabling them to be carried more easily: it allows people to live in the country, instead of the crowded town, or it carries them on pleasant and wholesome excursions.
"Political economy"
W. Stanley Jevons