Thomas Robert Malthus > Quotes

“The view which he has given of human life has a melancholy hue,
but he feels conscious that he has drawn these dark tints from a
conviction that they are really in the picture, and not from a jaundiced
eye or an inherent spleen of disposition.”
― Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“The constancy of the laws of nature, or the certainty with which we may expect the same effects from the same causes, is the foundation of the faculty of reason.”
― T.R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“man as he really is, inert, sluggish, and averse from labour, unless compelled by necessity”
― T.R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“Evil exists in the world not to create despair but activity”
― Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.”
― T. R. (Thomas Robert) Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“any great interference with the affairs of other people is a species of tyranny,”
― T. R. (Thomas Robert) Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“nothing is so easy as to find fault with human institutions; nothing so difficult as to suggest adequate practical improvements.”
― T. R. (Thomas Robert) Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“everything is appropriated?”
― T.R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“I should be inclined, therefore, as I have hinted before, to consider the world and this life as the mighty process of God, not for the trial, but for the creation and formation of mind, a process necessary to awaken inert, chaotic matter into spirit, to sublimate the dust of the earth into soul, to elicit an ethereal spark from the clod of clay. And in this view of the subject, the various impressions and excitements which man receives through life may be considered as the forming hand of his Creator, acting by general laws, and awakening his sluggish existence, by the animating touches of the Divinity, into a capacity of superior enjoyment. The original sin of man is the torpor and corruption of the chaotic matter in which he may be said to be born.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus

“The constant effort towards population, which is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend toward a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same as he did before. During this season of distress, the discouragements to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great that population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land, to turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is already in tillage, till ultimately the means of subsistence become in the same proportion to the population as at the period from which we set out. The situation of the labourer being then again tolerably comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened, and the same retrograde and progressive movements with respect to happiness are repeated.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“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, An essay on the principle of population

“The greatest talents have been frequently misapplied and have produced evil proportionate to the extent of their powers.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“El obrero que se casa sin poder mantener a su familia puede ser considerado, en cierta medida, como enemigo de todos sus compañeros.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, Primer ensayo sobre la población

“The vices and moral weakness of man are not invincible: Man is perfectible, or in other words, susceptible of perpetual improvement.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“[H]ow am I to communicate this truth to a person who has scarcely ever felt intellectual pleasure? I may as well attempt to explain the nature and beauty of colours to a blind man. […] There is no common measure between us.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus

“we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavouring to impede, the operations of nature, in producing this mortality”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay On the Principle of Population, As It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, Volumen i

“One principal reason is that the histories of mankind that we possess are histories only of the higher classes. We have but few accounts that can be depended upon of the manners and customs of that part of mankind where these retrograde and progressive movements chiefly take place.”
― T. R. (Thomas Robert) Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“as long as a
great number of those impressions which form character, like the nice
motions of the arm, remain absolutely independent of the will of man,
though it would be the height of folly and presumption to attempt to
calculate the relative proportions of virtue and vice at the future periods
of the world, it may be safely asserted that the vices and moral
weakness of mankind, taken in the mass, are invincible.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“It may be said with truth that man is always susceptible of
improvement”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“The real perfectibility of man may be illustrated, as I have
mentioned before, by the perfectibility of a plant. The object of the
enterprising florist is, as I conceive, to unite size, symmetry, and beauty
of colour. It would surely be presumptuous in the most successful
improver to affirm, that he possessed a carnation in which these
qualities existed in the greatest possible state of perfection. However
beautiful his flower may be, other care, other soil, or other suns, might
produce one still more beautiful.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“The lower classes of people in Europe may at some future period
be much better instructed than they are at present; they may be taught
to employ the little spare time they have in many better ways than at
the ale-house; they may live under better and more equal laws than they
have ever hitherto done, perhaps, in any country; and I even conceive it
possible, though not probable that they may have more leisure; but it is
not in the nature of things that they can be awarded such a quantity of
money or subsistence as will allow them all to marry early, in the full
confidence that they shall be able to provide with ease for a numerous
family.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“spend all the wages they earn and enjoy themselves while they can appears to be evident from the number of families that, upon the failure of any great manufactory, immediately fall upon the parish,”
― T. R. (Thomas Robert) Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“There can be little doubt that the equalization of property which we have supposed, added to the circumstance of the labour of the whole community being directed chiefly to agriculture, would tend greatly to augment the produce of the country.”
― T.R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“nugatory.”
― T.R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. 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. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.”
― Thomas Malthus

“Una gran emigración lleva necesariamente implícita alguna forma de infortunio en el país desertado. Pues pocas personas habrá que abandonen sus familias, sus relaciones, sus amigos y su tierra natal para instalarse en un país desconocido y de clima extraño sin que lo justifique una situación de profundo malestar en el lugar en el que se encuentran o la esperanza de hallar considerables ventajas en el lugar de destino.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, Primer ensayo sobre la población

“La constante fuerza de crecimiento de la población, que, como hemos visto, actúa incluso en las sociedades más viciosas, hace que el número de habitantes aumente más de prisa que los medios de subsistencia.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, Primer ensayo sobre la población

“Todo aumento de la población sin incremento proporcional del alimento producirá el mismo efecto, reduciendo el valor del título de cada individuo.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, Primer ensayo sobre la población

“All that I can say is, that the wisest and best men in all ages had agreed in giving the preference, very greatly, to the pleasures of intellect; and that my own experience completely confirmed the truth of their decisions; that I had found sensual pleasures vain, transient, and continually attended with tedium and disgust; but that intellectual pleasures appeared to me ever fresh and young, filled up all my hours satisfactorily, gave a new zest to life, and diffused a lasting serenity over my mind”
― Thomas Robert Malthus

“Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. ... 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. Necessity, that imperious all pervading law of nature, restrains them within the prescribed bounds. The race of plants, and the race of animals shrink under this great restrictive law. And the race of man cannot, by any efforts of reason, escape from it. Among plants and animals its effects are waste of seed, sickness, and premature death. Among mankind, misery and vice.”
― Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population