The 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.

The main peculiarity which distinguishes man from other animals is the means of his support - the power which he possesses of very greatly increasing these means.

With regard to the duration of human life, there does not appear to have existed from the earliest ages of the world to the present moment the smallest permanent symptom or indication of increasing prolongation.

It 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.

It has appeared that from the inevitable laws of our nature, some human beings must suffer from want. These are the unhappy persons who, in the great lottery of life, have drawn a blank.

Hard as it may appear in individual instances , dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful.

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