Thomas Malthus quotes

Thomas Malthus was an English economist and demographer, most famous for his theory on population growth. His influential work suggested that populations tend to grow faster than the food supply, leading to periodic famine and hardship. He sparked significant debate and influenced both economic theory and public policy. Here are 84 of his quotes:

It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will always be confirmed by experiment. (Thomas Malthus)
The main peculiarity which distinguishes man from other animals, is the means of his support, is the power which he possesses of very greatly increasing these means. View quote
Thomas Malthus
I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the real price of labour. View quote
Thomas Malthus
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. View quote
Thomas Malthus
The first business of philosophy is to account for things as they are; and till our theories will do this, they ought not to be the ground of any practical conclusion. View quote
Thomas Malthus
Evil exists in the world not to create despair but activity. View quote
Thomas Malthus
To minds of a certain cast there is nothing so captivating as simplification and generalization. View quote
Thomas Malthus
It accords with the most liberal spirit of philosophy to suppose that not a stone can fall, or a plant rise, without the immediate agency of divine power. View quote
Thomas Malthus
Had population and food increased in the same ratio, it is probable that man might never have emerged from the savage state. View quote
Thomas Malthus
The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand years. View quote
Thomas Malthus
In general it may be said that demand is quite as necessary to the increase of capital as the increase of capital is to demand. (Thomas Malthus)
A feather will weigh down a scale when there is nothing in the opposite one. View quote
Thomas Malthus
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. View quote
Thomas Malthus
The superior power of population cannot be checked without producing misery or vice. View quote
Thomas Malthus
No limits whatever are placed to the productions of the earth; they may increase forever. View quote
Thomas Malthus
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. View quote
Thomas Malthus
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. View quote
Thomas Malthus
No move towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes has taken place in the five or six thousand years that the world has existed. View quote
Thomas Malthus
The science of political economy is essentially practical, and applicable to the common business of human life. There are few branches of human knowledge where false views may do more harm, or just views more good. View quote
Thomas Malthus
It cannot be true, therefore, that among animals some of the offspring will possess the desirable qualities of the parents in greater degree, or that animals are indefinitely perfectible. View quote
Thomas Malthus
...where are we to look for the consumption required but among the unproductive labourers of Adam Smith?... (Thomas Malthus)
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio, Subsistence, increases only in an arithmetical ratio. View quote
Thomas Malthus
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! View quote
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. View quote
Thomas Malthus
To prevent the recurrence of misery is, alas! beyond the power of man. View quote
Thomas Malthus