Thomas Malthus Quotes

The science of improvement of the human race germ plasm through better breeding

UNFIT HUMAN TRAITS Such As Feeblemindedness, Epilepsy, Criminality, Insanity, Alcoholism and Many Others Run In Families And Are Inherited in Exactly The Same Was As Colour In Guinea Pigs. If ALL MARRIAGES WERE EUGENIC, We could BREED OUT Most Of This Unfitness In THREE GENERATIONS.

The circumstance of superior beauty is thought worthy of attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?

What a pity people don't take as much trouble with their own breeding as intelligent racehorse owners do. But then I suppose it is bordering on fascism to think like that.

We should not minimize the great outstanding service of Eugenics for critical and diagnostic investigations. It demonstrates ... that uncontrolled fertility is universally correlated with disease, poverty, overcrowding and the transmission of hereditable traits.

Can we develop so sound and extensive a genetics that we can hope to breed, in the future, superior men?

Efforts to maximize a nation’s standard of living should try to improve its citizens’ genetic quality, especially with regard to intelligence and other economically important traits.

The Eugenist takes man purely as a plant or as an animal; he wants to breed him just as animals are bred.

We must, if we are to be consistent, and if we re to have a real pedigree herd, mate the best of our men with the best of our women as often as possible, and the inferior men with the inferior women as seldom as possible, and keep only the offspring of the best.

The aim of eugenics is to represent each class or sect by its best specimens; that done, to leave them to work out their common civilization in their own way.

Eugenics is the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally.

Eugenic goals are most likely to be attained under another name than eugenics.

Eugenics is ... the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.

The Eugenic Society . . . is perpetually bewailing the fact that wage-earners breed faster than middle-class people.

Natural selection must be replaced by eugenical artificial selection. This idea constitutes the sound core of eugenics, the applied science of human betterment.

Some have asked if the stock of men could not be improved,--if they could not be bred as cattle. Let Love be purified, and all therest will follow. A pure love is thus, indeed, the panacea for all the ills of the world.

Galton's eccentric, sceptical, observing, flashing, cavalry-leader type of mind led him eventually to become the founder of the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists, namely eugenics.

Arguing as the Eugenists do, you could prove anything. For instance, I know families where the men for generations have been wounded or killed in action. The Battles of Indian fame are such a family. Let us argue about this like the Eugenists. When men are wounded they become defective; they are a great expense to the State for pensions and are no more good; when they are killed they can't fight any more and their widows and children have to be provided for. Al! this is a great burden to the country. Getting wounded or killed is undoubtedly a hereditary taint. Therefore we should breed our soldiers from stock which has never had anyone killed or wounded among its predecessors, and therefore may be certain not to get into any danger should war break out.'

I acknowledge freely the great power of education and social influences in developing the active powers of the mind, just as I acknowledge the effect of use in developing the muscles of the blacksmith’s arm, and no further. Let the blacksmith labour as he will, he will find that there are certain feats beyond his power that are well within the strength of a man of herculean make, even although the latter may have led a sedentary life..

Degenerates, he warned, must not be permitted to reproduce their kind.

You can improve your education and even change your environment but what you really ARE was all settled when your parents www born. SELECTED PARENTS WILL HAVE BETTER CHILDREN.

I genuinely do think that skin does have a lot to do with genetics. I was blessed. You should see my mom and grandma - it's unfair!

My mother has fabulous skin which she gracefully passed on to me.

Longevity, like intelligence and good looks and health and strength of character, is largely a matter of genetic heritage. Choose your parents with care.

We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognizance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea.