Malthus Population Quotes & Sayings

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. — Thomas Malthus

The world's population will multiply more rapidly than the available food supply. — Thomas Malthus

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

The superior power of population cannot be checked without producing misery or vice. — Thomas Malthus

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. — 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. — 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. — Thomas Malthus

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

The view which he has given of human life has a melancholy hue,
but he feels conscious that he has drawn these dark tints from a
conviction that they are really in the picture, and not from a jaundiced
eye or an inherent spleen of disposition. — Thomas Robert Malthus

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

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

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. — Thomas Malthus

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

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

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. — Thomas Malthus

The most effectual encouragement to population is, the activity of industry, and the consequent multiplication of the national products. — Thomas Malthus

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

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

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. — Thomas Malthus

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

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. — Thomas Malthus

Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. 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. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world. — Thomas Malthus

From Pastor Malthus to the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth; from hysteria over DDT, PCBs, and natural gas "fracking"; to continuing bouts of chemo-phobia and population panic; the achievements of capitalism have suffered a long series of detractions. The factitious and febrile campaign against global warming is only the latest binge of self-abuse among the children of prosperity. — George Gilder

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