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Civilizations have always been pyramidal in structure. As one climbs toward the apex of the social edifice, there is increased leisure and increasing opportunity to pursue hapiness. As one climbs, one finds also fewer and fewer people to enjoy this more and more. Invariably, there is a preponderance of the dispossessed. And remember this, no matter how well off the bottom layers of the pyramid might be on an absolute scale, they are always dispossessed in comparison with the apex.
Civilizations have always been pyramidal in structure. As one climbs toward the apex of the social edifice, there is increased leisure and increasing opportunity to pursue hapiness. As one climbs, one finds also fewer and fewer people to enjoy this more and more. Invariably, there is a preponderance of the dispossessed. And remember this, no matter how well off the bottom layers of the pyramid might be on an absolute scale, they are always dispossessed in comparison with the apex.
Approximate author period: c. 1956 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Isaac Asimov
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
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- Approximate author period: c. 1956 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1920 to 1992; Wikidata Q34981, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34981 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 152772; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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