Man cannot live in the midst of plenty. Thomas Malthus More Quotes by Thomas Malthus More Quotes From Thomas Malthus Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. Thomas Malthus crowds house people 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. Thomas Malthus population numbers science The world's population will multiply more rapidly than the available food supply. Thomas Malthus food-supply population world 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 population race men I think it will be found that experience, Thomas Malthus foundation economy thinking The most baleful mischiefs may be expected from the unmanly conduct of not daring to face truth because it is unpleasing. Thomas Malthus courage faces integrity The labouring poor, to use a vulgar expression, seem always to live from hand to mouth. Their present wants employ their whole whole attention, and they seldom think of the future. Even when they have an opportunity of saving they seldom exercise it, but all that is beyond their present neccessities goes, generally speaking, to the ale house. Thomas Malthus exercise opportunity thinking Evil exists in the world not to create despair but activity. Thomas Malthus despair evil world 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 eugenics population children The most successful supporters of tyranny are without doubt those general declaimers who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all evils to which society is subject, to human institutions and the iniquity of governments. Thomas Malthus government successful evil The transfer of three shillings and sixpence a day to every labourer would not increase the quantity of meat in the country. There is not at present enough for all to have a decent share. What would then be the consequence? Thomas Malthus three meat country Had population and food increased in the same ratio, it is probable that man might never have emerged from the savage state. Thomas Malthus ratios population men The rich, by unfair combinations, contribute frequently to prolong a season of distress among the poor. Thomas Malthus rich economy poor Malthus married in 1804 and beat three children with his wife Thomas Malthus wife three children To remedy the frequent distresses of the common people, the poor laws of England have been instituted; but it is to be feared that though they may have alleviated a little the intensity of individual misfortune, they have spread the general evil over a much larger surface. Thomas Malthus evil law people 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. Thomas Malthus race men mean A feather will weigh down a scale when there is nothing in the opposite one. Thomas Malthus feathers scales opposites [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. Thomas Malthus food science mean The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Thomas Malthus population earth men A writer may tell me that he thinks man will ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him. Thomas Malthus ostriches men thinking
