Source: When Gravity Fails (1986), Chapter 6 (p. 63).
“I am only an average man, but by George, I work harder at it than the average man.”
Interview with Alex Haley
“The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.”
January 1886, in a campaign speech given in New York https://www.history.com/news/teddy-roosevelt-race-imperialism-national-parks
1880s
“The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.”
[Marc Caputo, Miami Herald, http://www.miamiherald.com/458/story/236981.html, GOP's Thompson shows his conservatism, September 14, 2007, 2007-09-21, http://web.archive.org/web/20070811065546/http://www.miamiherald.com/458/story/236981.html, 2007-08-11]
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 73 (in 1998 edition)
329
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
Context: My old suggestion that public offices be filled by drawing lots, as a jury box is filled, was probably more intelligent than I suspected. It has been criticized on the ground that selecting a man at random would probably produce some extremely bad State governors. [... ] But I incline to believe that it would be best to choose members of the Legislature quite at random. No matter how stupid they were, they could not be more stupid than the average legislator under the present system. Certainly, they'd be measurably more honest, taking one with another. Finally, there would be the great advantage that all of them had got their jobs unwillingly, and were eager, not to spin out their sessions endlessly, but to get home as soon as possible.
Source: Hidden Order - How Adaptation Builds Complexity (1995), Ch 1. Basic Elements, p. 23
