“Being average means you are as close to the bottom as you are to the top.”

“The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.”

Upton Sinclair book The Jungle

“Skipping the basic methods will cost you more at the top than following the full process of doing things while you are still at the bottom of the ladder”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Happiness means being close to the one you love, that's all. (Taking immediate possession is not necessary.)”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

“Boo, Forever

Spinning like a ghost
on the bottom of a
top,
I'm haunted by all
the space that I
will live without
you.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

“I know up on top you are seeing great sights,
But down here on the bottom,
We too should have rights.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

“When you're knocked on your back and you life's a flop,
When you're down on the bottom and there's nothing else but to shout to the top!”

Paul Weller (singer) (1958) English singer-songwriter, Guitarist

“There is no such thing as an average human being. If you have a normal brain, you are superior.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

“People say it's hard at the top, but it's even harder at the bottom.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

“The top of modern American society is increasingly unified and often seems wilfully co-ordinated: at the top there has emerged an elite of power. The middle levels are a drifting set of stalemated balancing forces: the middle does not link the bottom with the top. The bottom of this society is fragmented, and even as a passive fact, increasingly powerless:at the bottom there is emerging a mass society.”

C. Wright Mills book The Power Elite