Thomas Malthus Quotes

Quotes about:

• Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague.

  Thomas Malthus

  People, House, Crowds

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1989). “An Essay on the Principle of Population”, p.115, Cambridge University Press

  46 Copy quote

• The world's population will multiply more rapidly than the available food supply.

  Thomas Malthus

  Population, World, Food Supply

  56 Copy quote

• The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.

  Thomas Malthus

  Men, Race, Population

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings”, p.90, Penguin UK

  53 Copy quote

• Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second.

  Thomas Malthus

  Science, Numbers, Population

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1959). “Population: The First Essay”, p.5, University of Michigan Press

  47 Copy quote

• Evil exists in the world not to create despair but activity.

  Thomas Malthus

  Evil, Despair, World

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population: Illustrated”, p.167, eKitap Projesi

  31 Copy quote

• I think it will be found that experience,
  the true source and foundation of all knowledge,
  invariably confirms its truth.

  Thomas Malthus

  Thinking, Foundation, Economy

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population: Illustrated”, p.14, eKitap Projesi

  60 Copy quote

• The redundant population, necessarily occasioned by the prevalence of early marriages, must be repressed by occasional famines, and by the custom of exposing children, which, in times of distress, is probably more frequent than is ever acknowledged to Europeans.

  Thomas Malthus

  Children, Eugenics, Population

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings”, p.63, Penguin UK

  34 Copy quote

• The histories of mankind are histories only of the higher classes.

  Thomas Malthus

  Class, Economy, Mankind

  5 Copy quote

• Nature herself in times of great poverty or bad climatic conditions, as well as poor harvest, intervenes to restrict the increase of population of certain countries or races; this, to be sure, by a method as wise as it is ruthless.

  Thomas Malthus

  Wise, Country, Race

  6 Copy quote

• The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.

  Thomas Malthus

  Men, Population, Earth

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings”, p.47, Penguin UK

  21 Copy quote

• The labouring poor, to use a vulgar expression, seem always to live from hand to mouth. Their present wants employ their whole whole attention, and they seldom think of the future. Even when they have an opportunity of saving they seldom exercise it, but all that is beyond their present neccessities goes, generally speaking, to the ale house.

  Thomas Malthus

  Exercise, Opportunity, Thinking

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population: Illustrated”, p.44, eKitap Projesi

  33 Copy quote

• The rich, by unfair combinations, contribute frequently to prolong a season of distress among the poor.

  Thomas Malthus

  Rich, Economy, Poor

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings”, p.55, Penguin UK

  23 Copy quote

• The most baleful mischiefs may be expected from the unmanly conduct of not daring to face truth because it is unpleasing.

  Thomas Malthus

  Courage, Integrity, Faces

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings”, p.159, Penguin UK

  10 Copy quote

• It has appeared that from the inevitable laws of our nature, some human beings must suffer from want. These are the unhappy persons who, in the great lottery of life, have drawn a blank.

  Thomas Malthus

  Law, Unhappy Person, Suffering

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings”, p.112, Penguin UK

  5 Copy quote

• The most successful supporters of tyranny are without doubt those general declaimers who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all evils to which society is subject, to human institutions and the iniquity of governments.

  Thomas Malthus

  Successful, Government, Evil

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1989). “An Essay on the Principle of Population”, p.129, Cambridge University Press

  21 Copy quote

• A feather will weigh down a scale when there is nothing in the opposite one.

  Thomas Malthus

  Opposites, Scales, Feathers

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1820). “Principles of Political Economy Considered with a View to Their Practical Application”, p.406

  11 Copy quote

• Population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every 25 years or increases in a geometrical ratio.

  Thomas Malthus

  Years, Environmental, Population

  7 Copy quote

• Had population and food increased in the same ratio, it is probable that man might never have emerged from the savage state.

  Thomas Malthus

  Men, Ratios, Population

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1959). “Population: The First Essay”, p.127, University of Michigan Press

  25 Copy quote

• The perpetual tendency of the race of man to increase beyond the means of subsistence is one of the general laws of animated nature, which we can have no reason to expect to change.

  Thomas Malthus

  Mean, Men, Race

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1798). “An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it Affects the Future Imporvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers”, p.346, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

  21 Copy quote

• To minds of a certain cast there is nothing so captivating as simplification and generalization.

  Thomas Malthus

  Mind, Captivating, Certain

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings”, p.243, Penguin UK

  12 Copy quote

• It may at first appear strange, but I believe it is true, that I cannot by means of money raise a poor man and enable him to live much better than he did before, without proportionably depressing others in the same class.

  Thomas Malthus

  Depressing, Believe, Mean

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1959). “Population: The First Essay”, p.27, University of Michigan Press

  4 Copy quote

• A writer may tell me that he thinks man will ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him.

  Thomas Malthus

  Men, Thinking, Ostriches

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1959). “Population: The First Essay”, p.4, University of Michigan Press

  69 Copy quote

• The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil.

  Thomas Malthus

  Evil, Temptation, Virtue

  Thomas Robert Malthus (1959). “Population: The First Essay”, p.6, University of Michigan Press

  7 Copy quote

• [P]opulation, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio. ... [T]he means of subsistence, under circumstances the most favorable to human industry, could not possibly be made to increase faster than in an arithmetical ratio.

  Thomas Malthus

  Food, Mean, Science

  20 Copy quote

• The transfer of three shillings and sixpence a day to every labourer would not increase the quantity of meat in the country. There is not at present enough for all to have a decent share. What would then be the consequence?

  Thomas Malthus

  Country, Meat, Three

  Thomas Malthus (2015). “An Essay on the Principle of Population: Illustrated”, p.40, eKitap Projesi

  16 Copy quote

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