Malthus Quotes

• Malthus has been buried many times, and Malthusian scarcity with him. But as Garrett Hardin remarked, anyone who has to be reburied so often cannot be entirely dead.

  Herman E. Daly

  Mother, Scarcity, Earth

  Herman E. Daly (1991). “Steady-State Economics: Second Edition With New Essays”, p.43, Island Press

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• As agonizing a disease as cancer is, I do not think it can be said that our civilization is threatened by it. ... But a very plausible case can be made that our civilization is fundamentally threatened by the lack of adequate fertility control. Exponential increases of population will dominate any arithmetic increases, even those brought about by heroic technological initiatives, in the availability of food and resources, as Malthus long ago realized.

  Carl Sagan

  Cancer, Science, Thinking

  10 Copy quote

• Malthus argued a century and a half ago that man, by using up all his available resources, would forever press on the limits of subsistence, thus condemning humanity to an indefinite future of misery and poverty. We can now begin to hope and, I believe, know that Malthus was expressing not a law of nature, but merely the limitation then of scientific and social wisdom. The truth or falsity of his prediction will depend now, with the tools we have, on our own actions, now and in the years to come.

  John F. Kennedy

  Believe, Future, Science

  8 Copy quote

• In fact, the early demographer Thomas Malthus believes that the only way the human population would ever check itself was by running headlong into a disaster, like a pandemic or famine. Sometimes we get so frustrated with the slowness of human political processes that we wish a giant flaming rock would solve the problem for us.

  Annalee Newitz

  Running, Believe, Rocks

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It would be fun too to put some of the great philosophers and political scientists of the past couple centuries into a time machine, have them look at the world today, and see what they think. Imagine Schumpeter, Malthus, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Marx, and more! That would be good fun.

  Scott D. Anthony

  Couple, Fun, Past

  Source: bobmorris.biz

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines, who believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking. Herod of Judea, all the famous soldiers have been practical exponents of the Malthusian idea.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Talking, Ideas, Soldier

  4 Copy quote

• Adam Smith and Malthus and Ricardo ! There is something about these three figures to evoke more than ordinary sentiments from us their children in the spirit.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Children, Ordinary, Three

  John Maynard Keynes, Royal Economic Society (Great Britain) (1971). “The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: Essays in biography”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Malthus married in 1804 and beat three children with his wife

  Thomas Malthus

  Children, Wife, Three

  26 Copy quote