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Thomas Malthus

Thomas Malthus Quotes

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Thomas Malthus, a British economist and demographer, was born on February 14, 1766, in Surrey, England, and died on December 23, 1834. Malthus is known for his theory of population, which posits that population growth will outstrip food supply, leading to poverty and suffering.

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Famous Thomas Malthus Quotes

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

Men States Might Population Savages Ratios

Book:Population: The First Essay

Source: Population: The First Essay

“Population trends have always provoked doom-fraught oracles, because their popular interpreters suppose that every new series will be infinitely sustained; yet, beyond the short term, expectations based on them are never fulfilled.”

Term Expectations Series Population Trends Fulfilled Doom Short Term Interpreter Oracles Provoked

Author:Thomas Malthus

“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.”

Wells Country Certain Poor Race Poverty Wise Conditions Increase Method Population Harvest Ruthless

Author:Thomas Malthus

“The most effectual encouragement to population is, the activity of industry, and the consequent multiplication of the national products.”

Products Industry Activity Encouragement Population Multiplication

Author:Thomas Malthus

“THERE is scarcely any inquiry more curious, or, from its importance, more worthy of attention, than that which traces the causes which practically check the progress of wealth in different countries, and stop it, or make it proceed very slowly, while the power of production remains comparatively undiminished, or at least would furnish the means of a great and abundant increase of produce and population.”

Mean Different Country Causes Wealth Attention Progress Produce Importance Increase Remains Population Productions Worthy Checks Curious Inquiry Different Countries

Author:Thomas Malthus

“The doctrine of population has been conspicuously absent, not because I doubt in the least its truth and vast importance, but because it forms no part of the direct problem of economics.”

Has Beens Problem Form Doubt Economics Direct Importance Population Doctrine Absent

Author:Thomas Malthus

“Capitals accumulate faster than population”

Population Faster

Author:Thomas Malthus

“Population regulates itself by the funds which are to employ it, and therefore always increases or diminishes with the increase or the diminution of capital. Every reduction of capital is therefore necessarily followed by a less effective demand for corn, by a fall in price, and by a diminished cultivation.”

Fall Demand Increase Population Fund Diminish Corn Reduction Cultivation

Author:Thomas Malthus

“The immediate cause of the increase of population is the excess of the births above deaths; and the rate of increase, or the period of doubling, depends upon the proportion which the excess of the births above the deaths bears to the population.”

Causes Depends Bears Birth Periods Increase Rate Population Proportion Excess

Book:ON POPULATION THREE ESSAYS

Source: ON POPULATION THREE ESSAYS

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

World Population Available Food Supply

Author:Thomas Malthus

“The natural inequality of the two powers of population and of production in the earth, and that great law of our nature which must constantly keep their efforts equal, form the great difficulty that to me appears insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society.”

Way Two Earth Form Law Natural Effort Equal Difficulty Population Productions Inequality Insurmountable

Book:An Essay on the Principle of Population: Illustrated

Source: An Essay on the Principle of Population: Illustrated

“The superior power of population cannot be checked without producing misery or vice.”

Misery Population Vices Superiors Population Growth

Book:Population: The First Essay

Source: Population: The First Essay

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

Years Goes On Increase Environmental Population Ratios World Population Population Explosion

Author:Thomas Malthus

“The constant effort towards population, which is found even in the most vicious societies, increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased.”

People Mean Found Numbers Effort Economy Increase Constant Population Vicious Subsistence

Book:An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings

Source: An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings

“The prodigious waste of human life occasioned by this perpetual struggle for room and food, was more than supplied by the mighty power of population, acting, in some degree, unshackled, from the constant habit of emigration.”

Life Humans Science Rooms Acting Struggle Habit Degrees Waste Constant Population Human Life Perpetual Prodigious Emigration

Book:Population: The First Essay

Source: Population: The First Essay

“Where there are few people, and a great quantity of fertile land, the power of the earth to afford a yearly increase of food may be compared to a great reservoir of water, supplied by a moderate stream. The faster population increases, the more help will be got to draw off the water, and consequently an increasing quantity will be taken every year. But the sooner, undoubtedly, will the reservoir be exhausted, and the streams only remain.”

Source: An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings

“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.”

Children Population Customs Distress Occasional Famine Eugenics Exposing Repressed Euthanasia Redundant

Book:An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings

Source: An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings

“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.”

Firsts Science Numbers Increase Population Comparison Acquaintance Ratios Immensity Subsistence

Book:Population: The First Essay

Source: Population: The First Essay

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

Men Earth Economy Greater Produce Population Subsistence World Population

Book:An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings

Source: An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings

“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.”

Men Humans Earth Race Produce Shapes Population Superiors Human Race Premature Subsistence Premature Death

Book:An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings

Source: An Essay on the Principle of Population and Other Writings