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“It has been said, and perhaps with truth, that the conclusions of Political Economy partake more of the certainty of the stricter sciences than those of most of the other branches of human knowledge.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book I, Introduction, p. 1
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“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.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section VIII, p. 384
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“No 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 Robert Malthus

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter XI, paragraph 1, lines 6-8

“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.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book I, Introduction, p. 9
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“It cannot be true, therefore, that among animals some of the offspring will possess the desirable qualities of the parents in greater degree, or that animals are indefinitely perfectible.”

Thomas Robert Malthus

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter IX, paragraph 9, lines 1-3

“The proposition of Mr. Ricardo, which states that a rise in the price of labour lowers the price of a large class of commodities, has undoubtedly a very paradoxical air; but it is, nevertheless, true, and the appearance of paradox would vanish, if it were stated more naturally and correctly.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book I, Chapter II, On the Nature, Causes, and Measures of Value, Section IV, p. 88
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“…where are we to look for the consumption required but among the unproductive labourers of Adam Smith?…”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 406
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio, Subsistence, increases only in an arithmetical ratio.”

Thomas Robert Malthus

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter I, paragraph 18, lines 1-2

“If a country can only be rich by running a successful race for low wages, I should be disposed to say at once, perish such riches!”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book I, Chapter III, Of the Rent of Land, Section IX, p. 214
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“THERE is scarcely any inquiry more curious, or, from its importance, more worthy of attention, than that which traces the causes which practically check the progress of wealth in different countries, and stop it, or make it proceed very slowly, while the power of production remains comparatively undiminished, or at least would furnish the means of a great and abundant increase of produce and population.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section I, p. 309
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“The most successful supporters of tyranny are without doubt those general declaimers who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all evils to which society is subject, to human institutions and the iniquity of governments.”

Thomas Robert Malthus

Essay on the Principle of Population (1798; rev. through 1826)

“Man cannot live in the midst of plenty.”

Thomas Robert Malthus

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter X, paragraph 7, line 1

“It accords with the most liberal spirit of philosophy to suppose that not a stone can fall, or a plant rise, without the immediate agency of divine power.”

Thomas Robert Malthus

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter VII, paragraph 10, lines 8-10

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

Thomas Robert Malthus

Essay on the Principle of Population (1798; rev. through 1826)

“To prevent the recurrence of misery is, alas! beyond the power of man.”

Thomas Robert Malthus

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter V, paragraph 25, lines 4-5

“I happen to have a very bad fit of the tooth-ache at the time I am writing this.”

Thomas Robert Malthus

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter XII, paragraph 6, lines 8-9

“On the whole it may be observed, that the specific use of a body of unproductive consumers, is to give encouragement to wealth by maintaining such a balance between produce and consumption as will give the greatest exchangeable value to the results of the national industry.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 412-413
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“The question is, what is saving?”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book I, Chapter I, Of The Definitions of Wealth and of Productive Labour, Section II, p. 40
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“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.”

Thomas Robert Malthus

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter IX, paragraph 7, lines 1-4

“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.”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section X, p. 437
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)