When Hume and Adam Smith prophesied that a little increase of national debt beyond the then amount of it, would probably occasion bankruptcy; the main cause of their error was the natural one, of not being able to see the vast increase of productive power to which the nation would subsequently obtain.
Thomas MalthusNo 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.
Thomas MalthusThe 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.
Thomas MalthusWhere 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.
Thomas Malthus