Thomas Malthus
Thomas Malthus
The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS was an English cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political economy and demography. Malthus himself used only his middle name Robert...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth14 February 1766
taken party commodity
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.
taken years land
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.
sex moving taken
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.
taken men discovery
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.
afterwards effects increase power repressed room wherever
Wherever there is liberty, the power of increase is exerted, and the superabundant effects are repressed afterwards by want of room and nourishment.
found foundation invariably source true
I think it will be found that experience, the true source and foundation of all knowledge, invariably confirms its truth.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
asks beings bring cannot career means provide reason whether whom
Reason interrupts man's career and asks him whether he may not bring beings into the world for whom he cannot provide the means of subsistence.
higher histories mankind possess
The histories of mankind that we possess are histories only of the higher classes.
evil mind earth
The greatest talents have been frequently misapplied and have produced evil proportionate to the extent of their powers. Both reason and revelation seem to assure us that such minds will be condemned to eternal death, but while on earth, these vicious instruments performed their part in the great mass of impressions, by the disgust and abhorrence which they excited.
men able earth
I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will ultimately be able to live without food.
philosophy theory experiments
It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will always be confirmed by experiment.
eight house employment
It is not the most pleasant employment to spend eight hours a day in a counting house.
years luxury income
Thirty or forty proprietors, with incomes answering to between one thousand and five thousand a year, would create a much more effectual demand for the necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries of life, than a single proprietor possessing a hundred thousand a year.