THOMAS MALTHUS

It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will always be confirmed by experiment.

The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil.

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.

Each pursues his own theory, little solicitous to correct or improve it by an attention to what is advanced by his opponents.

The friend of the present order of things condemns all political speculations in the gross.

A writer may tell me that he thinks man will ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him.

A great emigration necessarily implies unhappiness of some kind or other in the country that is deserted.

The superior power of population cannot be checked without producing misery or vice.

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.

No limits whatever are placed to the productions of the earth; they may increase forever.

The rich, by unfair combinations, contribute frequently to prolong a season of distress among the poor.

I think it will be found that experience, the true source and foundation of all knowledge, invariably confirms its truth.

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

The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late years have all concurred to lead many men into the opinion that we were touching on a period big with the most important changes.

The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.

In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and simple manners prevailed, the increase of the human species would evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto known.

I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will ultimately be able to live without food.

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.

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 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.

The land in Ireland is infinitely more peopled than anywhere else; and to give full effect to the natural resources of the country, a great part of the population should be swept from the soil.

Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature.

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

When the wages of labour are hardly sufficient to maintain two children, a man marries and has five or six.

No loss, in proportion to its amount, affects the interest of the nation so deeply, and vitally, and is so difficult to recover, as the loss of agricultural capital and produce