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
Thomas Malthus quotes about
opposites scales feathers
A feather will weigh down a scale when there is nothing in the opposite one.
population faster
Capitals accumulate faster than population
doubt doctrine population
The doctrine of population has been conspicuously absent, not because I doubt in the least its truth and vast importance, but because it forms no part of the direct problem of economics.
attachment law virtue
Whether the law of marriage be instituted or not, the dictate of nature and virtue seems to be an early attachment to one woman.
equality simple virtue
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.
forever may limits
No limits whatever are placed to the productions of the earth; they may increase forever.
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.
agriculture corporations causes
Every endeavor should be used to weaken and destroy all those institutions relating to corporations, apprenticeships, &c, which cause the labours of agriculture to be worse paid than the labours of trade and manufactures.
encouragement population multiplication
The most effectual encouragement to population is, the activity of industry, and the consequent multiplication of the national products.
expectations oracles trends
Population trends have always provoked doom-fraught oracles, because their popular interpreters suppose that every new series will be infinitely sustained; yet, beyond the short term, expectations based on them are never fulfilled.
adversity class realizing
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.
looks adam consumption
where are we to look for the consumption required but among the unproductive labourers of Adam Smith?...
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.
views political branches
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.