To prevent the recurrence of misery is, alas! beyond the power of man. Thomas Malthus More Quotes by Thomas Malthus More Quotes From Thomas Malthus Each pursues his own theory, little solicitous to correct or improve it by an attention to what is advanced by his opponents. Thomas Malthus opponentslittlesattention 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 landtakenyears The finest minds seem to be formed rather by efforts at original thinking, by endeavours to form new combinations, and to discover new truths, than by passively receiving the impressions of other men's ideas. Thomas Malthus menideasthinking If it be taught that all who are born have a right to support on the land, whatever be their number, and that there is no occasion to exercise any prudence in the affair of marriage so as to check this number, the temptations, according to all the known principles of human nature, will inevitably be yielded to, and more and more will gradually become dependent on parish assistance. Thomas Malthus landexercisenumbers To minds of a certain cast there is nothing so captivating as simplification and generalization. Thomas Malthus captivatingcertainmind 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 strugglelifescience The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil. Thomas Malthus virtuetemptationevil The passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the same, that it may always be considered, in algebraic language as a given quantity. Thomas Malthus passionagesex If a country can only be rich by running a successful race for low wages, I should be disposed to say at once, perish such riches! Thomas Malthus successfulrunningcountry It has been said, and perhaps with truth, that the conclusions of Political Economy partake more of the certainty of the stricter sciences than those of most of the other branches of human knowledge. Thomas Malthus economybranchespolitical When Hume and Adam Smith prophesied that a little increase of national debt beyond the then amount of it, would probably occasion bankruptcy; the main cause of their error was the natural one, of not being able to see the vast increase of productive power to which the nation would subsequently obtain. Thomas Malthus errorsablecauses In prosperous times the mercantile classes often realize fortunes, which go far towards securing them against the future; but unfortunately the working classes, though they share in the general prosperity, do not share in it so largely as in the general adversity. Thomas Malthus realizingadversityclass It is a mere futile process to exchange one set of commodities for another, if the parties; after this new distribution of goods has taken place, are not better off than they were before. Thomas Malthus commoditypartytaken In 1860, sixty-three per cent of the couples married in Great Britain had families of four or more children; in 1925 only twenty per cent had more than four. Thomas Malthus coupletwentieschildren 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 excesspopulationcauses 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 effortlawtwo 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 racewisecountry The main peculiarity which distinguishes man from other animals is the means of his support - the power which he possesses of very greatly increasing these means. Thomas Malthus animalmenmean Where are we to look for the consumption required but among the unproductive labourers of Adam Smith?. Thomas Malthus consumptionadamlooks The friend of the present order of things condemns all political speculations in the gross. Thomas Malthus grosspoliticalorder
