Thomas Malthus Quotes

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.

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio.

The perpetual tendency of the race of man to increase beyond the means of subsistence is one of the general laws of animated nature, which we can have no reason to expect to change.

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.

There's going to be competition because there are not enough resources. Resources grow arithmetically, populations grow exponentially. You can't ever have enough resources and that's the foundation of this idea of competition.

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.

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

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.

The whole action of the laws tended to increase the number of consumers of food and to diminish the number of producers, was due the invention of the Malthusian theory of population.

The whole surface of our globe can afford room and support only to such a number of all sorts of creatures, and by their doubling, trebling or any other multiplication of their kind, they must starve or devour one another. The world is now well-peopled ... neither too full nor too empty and if too many the length of life will be reduced …. plague and war may be, not only a just punishment of the sins of men, but also a wise means to keep the balance of mankind even.

The Malthusian Theory - that mankind, for biological and sociological reasons, is so fertile, so fecund, that if you started out with the new continent and plenty of land for everybody, in several generations we would multiply our numbers.

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.

[P]opulation, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio. ... [T]he means of subsistence, under circumstances the most favorable to human industry, could not possibly be made to increase faster than in an arithmetical ratio.

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.

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.

Commodity prices are at a record high. In 1933, the world's population was just over 2 billion people. Today, there are 7 billion mouths to feed - many of them depending on American agriculture.

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

Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence.

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.

Over-population is a phenomenon connected with the survival of the unfit, and it is a mechanism which has created conditions favourable to the survival of the unfit and the elimination of the fit.

In any race between human numbers and natural resources, time is against us.

One always returns to the fact that there are just too many of us, the population continues to rise and it's unsustainable.

I generally avoid over-population arguments. But there's no question we're in population overshoot. The catch is we're not going to do anything about it. There will be no policy. The usual suspects: starvation, war, disease, will drive the population down. There's little more to say about that really, and it's certainly an unappetizing discussion, but it's probably the truth. In any case, we're in overshoot and we face vast resource scarcities.

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.

Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum.