I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the real price of labour.
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 MalthusIt does not, however, seem impossible that by an attention to breed, a certain degree of improvement, similar to that among animals, might take place among men. Whether intellect could be communicated may be a matter of doubt: but size, strength, beauty, complexion, and perhaps even longevity are in a degree transmissible... As the human race could not be improved in this way, without condemning all the bad specimens to celibacy, it is not probable, that an attention to breed should ever become general.
Thomas Malthus