If it be taught that all who are born have a right to support on the land, whatever be their number, and that there is no occasion to exercise any prudence in the affair of marriage so as to check this number, the temptations, according to all the known principles of human nature, will inevitably be yielded to, and more and more will gradually become dependent on parish assistance.

The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.

Had population and food increased in the same ratio, it is probable that man might never have emerged from the savage state.

The histories of mankind are histories only of the higher classes.

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.

In general it may be said that demand is quite as necessary to the increase of capital as the increase of capital is to demand.

Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.