1. at bottom - Adverb
2. at bottom - Phrase
in reality
Source: WordNetA riot is at bottom the language of the unheard. Martin Luther King Jr.
The definition of definition is at bottom just what the maxim of pragmatism expresses. Charles Sanders Peirce
Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are. Jon Kabat-Zinn
The charlatan takes very different shapes according to circumstances; but at bottom he is a man who cares nothing about knowledge for its own sake, and only strives to gain the semblance of it that he may use it for his own personal ends, which are always selfish and material. Arthur Schopenhauer
The reason the mass of men fear God, and at bottom dislike Him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch. (You perceive I employ a capital initial in the pronoun referring to the Deity; don't you think there is a slight dash of flunkeyism in that usage?). Herman Melville
Fascism was born to inspire a faith not of the Right (which at bottom aspires to conserve everything, even injustice) or of the Left (which at bottom aspires to destroy everything, even goodness), but a collective, integral, national faith. José Antonio Primo de Rivera