Population Quotes - Page 2

• Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Eugenics, Growth, Want

  "The Place of Women on the Court". Interview with Emily Bazelon, www.nytimes.com. July 7, 2009.

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

  Thomas Malthus

  Years, Environmental, Goes On

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• Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

  G. M. Trevelyan

  Education, Reading, Teaching

  English Social History ch. 18 (1942)

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• Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment

  David Attenborough

  Survival, Benefits, Environment

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• Once it was necessary that the people should multiply and be fruitful if the race was to survive. But now to preserve the race it is necessary that people hold back the power of propagation.

  Helen Keller

  Race, People, Balance

  Helen Keller (1967). “Helen Keller, her Socialist years: writings and speeches”

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• 'Smart growth' destroys the environment. 'Dumb growth' destroys the environment. The only difference is that 'smart growth' does it with good taste. It's like booking passage on the Titanic. Whether you go first-class or steerage, the result is the same.

  Albert Allen Bartlett

  Smart, Class, Differences

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• In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9% per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder.

  Stephen Hawking

  Years, Lasts, Shoulders

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• There is a single theme behind all our work-we must reduce population levels.

  Thomas Ferguson

  Levels, Theme, Agenda 21

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• The negative impact of population growth on all of our planetary ecosystems is becoming appallingly evident.

  David Rockefeller

  Impact, Ecosystems, Growth

  "The Unauthorized Biography of David Rockefeller", www.theeventchronicle.com. March 30, 2017.

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• If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.

  B. F. Skinner

  Numbers, Balance, World

  B. F. Skinner (1974). “Walden Two”, p.11, Hackett Publishing

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• What becomes of the surplus of human life? It is either, 1st. destroyed by infanticide, as among the Chinese and Lacedemonians; or 2d. it is stifled or starved, as among other nations whose population is commensurate to its food; or 3d. it is consumed by wars and endemic diseases; or 4th. it overflows, by emigration, to places where a surplus of food is attainable.

  James Madison

  War, Chinese, Balance

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.454

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• It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It's not just climate change; it's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.

  David Attenborough

  Home, Years, Space

  "Humans are plague on Earth". www.telegraph.co.uk. January 22, 2013.

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• To bring about destruction by overcrowding, mass starvation, anarchy, the destruction of our most cherished values, there is no need to do anything. We need only do nothing except what comes naturally, and breed. And how easy it is to do nothing

  Isaac Asimov

  Needs, Anarchy, Easy

  Isaac Asimov (1995). “Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime of Letters”, Doubleday Books

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• We have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domesticated plants and animals, but we have been rabbit-like in our unplanned breeding of ourselves.

  Arnold J. Toynbee

  Animal, Cynical, Rabbits

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• Can you think of any problem, in any area of human endeavour, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?

  Albert Allen Bartlett

  Thinking, Population Problem, Long

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• We must speak more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Cutting, Ebola, People

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• A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men.

  John Holdren

  Children, Men, Trying

  "Why Are We Still Listening to Progressives About the Environment?" By Glenn Beck, www.foxnews.com. September 2, 2009.

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• The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.

  John Holdren

  Pregnancy, Numbers, Long

  "Mitt Romney Is Moving Close to Eugenics and Really Bad Beliefs" by Gary Anderson, www.businessinsider.com. January 22, 2013.

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• Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.

  Isaac Asimov

  People, Democracy, World

  Interview with Bill Moyers on PBS miniseries "A World of Ideas" with Bill Moyers, www.pbs.org. October 17, 1988.

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• We must alert and organise the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  Population Problem, Two, Roots

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• The hungry world cannot be fed until and unless the growth of its resources and the growth of its population come into balance. Each man and woman-and each nation-must make decisions of conscience and policy in the face of this great problem.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Men, Population Problem, Decision

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1967). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966”, p.42, Best Books on

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• The combination of population growth and the growth in consumption is a danger that we are not prepared for and something we will need global co-operation on.

  Maurice Strong

  Growth, Needs, Danger

  "Maurice Strong on climate 'conspiracy', Bilberberg and population control". Interview with Leo Hickman, www.theguardian.com. June 23, 2010.

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• No despot ever flung forth his legions to die in foreign conquest, no privilege-ruled nation ever erupted across its borders, to lock in death embrace with another, but behind them loomed the driving power of a population too large for its boundaries and its natural resources.

  Margaret Sanger

  Death, Science, Privilege

  Margaret Sanger (2005). “Woman and the New Race”, p.3, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Many African leaders refuse to send their troops on peace keeping missions abroad because they probably need their armies to intimidate their own populations.

  Kofi Annan

  Army, Leader, Troops

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people and harder - and ultimately impossible to solve - with ever more people.

  David Attenborough

  People, Environmental, Impossible

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