Population Growth Quotes

“Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who so survive.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Europe is overpopulated, the world will soon be in the same condition, and if the self-reproduction of man is not rationalized... we shall have war.”
― Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion

“In the history of the world many souls have been, are, and will be, and with a little reflection this is marvelous and not depressing. Many jerks are made gloomy about it, for they think quantity buries them alive. That's just crazy. Numbers are very dangerous, but the main thing about them is that they humble your pride. And that's good.”
― Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King

“The world has a very serious problem, my friend' Shiva went on. 'Poor children still die by their millions. Westerners and the global rich -- like me -- live in post-scarcity society, while a billion people struggle to get enough to eat. And we're pushing the planet towards a tipping point, where the corals die and the forests burn and life becomes much, much harder. We have the resources to solve those problems, even now, but politics and economics and nationalism all get in the way. If we could access all those minds, though...”
― Ramez Naam, Crux

“Whether we accept it or not, this will likely be the century that determines what the optimal human population is for our planet. It will come about in one of two ways:
Either we decide to manage our own numbers, to avoid a collision of every line on civilization's graph - or nature will do it for us, in the form of famines, thirst, climate chaos, crashing ecosystems, opportunistic disease, and wars over dwindling resources that finally cut us down to size.”
― Alan Weisman, Countdown: Our Last Best Hope for a Future on Earth?

“The view which he has given of human life has a melancholy hue,
but he feels conscious that he has drawn these dark tints from a
conviction that they are really in the picture, and not from a jaundiced
eye or an inherent spleen of disposition.”
― Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population

“Governments who manipulate population growth have two choices: making maternity pleasant, or making it inescapable.”
― Kate Millett, Sexual Politics

“The obvious pollution occurring in many places - worst of all, in the planned societies- has encouraged the growth of the environmental movement, which, however, as shown in previous chapters, has an agenda that goes far beyond clean-up and beautification, far beyond the stewardship of nature that is commanded by ancient religious tradition. Embracing the "biospheric vision" in the "spirit of deep ecology", the movement sees human beings as the chief enemy in the struggle on behalf of a deified Nature. The environmental movement, therefore, is the perfect vehicle for population control. It is popular - people do love trees and animals and beautiful scenery - and it is unequivocal in its devotion to reducing human numbers. The environmental agencies of the United Nations, with their chilling blueprints for "demographic transition" and a standardless, undefined but totally planned and controlled "sustainable development", combine the fervor of nature worship with the lack of accountability of an unelected, international bureaucracy.”
― Jacqueline Kasun, The War Against Population: The Economics and Ideology of World Population Control

“Our ancestors have much to answer for.
Why? What did they do?
....Long ago, they used machines and drugs to keep the unhealthy and unfit ones of us alive. In that past time it was believed that all persons must have children. It was a right deemed so precious that it was forced upon even those who did not value it or should not have had it. If one of our people became pregnant, our people used all their knowledge to assure the young would be born, no matter how sick or disabled. Then, if the young lived, they injected them and dosed them and radiated them and transfused and transplanted them, to keep them alive, and then, when they were grown, they used all their skills in assisting them to have children of their own.”
― Sheri S. Tepper, The Family Tree

“With excess population you can't stabilise the economy of society, can't save the environment for society and can't subdue the evil in society.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Adding more people causes problems. But people are also the means to solve these problems. The main fuel to speed the world’s progress is our stock of knowledge; the brakes are our lack of imagination and unsound social regulations of these activities. The ultimate resource is people—especially skilled, spirited, and hopeful young people endowed with liberty—who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefits, and so inevitably they will benefit the rest of us as well.”
― Julian L. Simon, The State of Humanity

“Centrally planned economies are upended by out of control population. Their escape valve is eugenics.”
― A.E. Samaan

“Seit Jahr und Tag ist notorisch, daß unsere Erde das vorausberechenbare Wachstum der Bevölkerung, die Erschöpfung der natürlichen Ressourcen und die Auszehrung der Umwelt nicht lange erträgt. Wir leben seit geraumer Zeit auf Kosten kommender Generationen. [...] Die Gefahr, daß die Menschheit sich selbst zerstört, ist auch dann nicht gebannt, wenn der Atomkrieg ausbleibt."

("It has been an obvious fact for the longest time that our earth will not be able to sustain for long the foreseeable growth of its population, the exhaustion of its natural resources, and the emaciation of its natural environment. We have been living for quite a while at the expense of our future generations. [...] The absence of a nuclear war does not, by itself, diminish the danger of humanity's self-destruction.")”
― Willy Brandt, Erinnerungen

“If your work is worthy enough to carry your name, you may not need a child to carry your name.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) had a growth schema with only two factors of production—natural resources and labour—with no allowance for technical progress, capital formation, or gains from international specialization. In 1798, he portrayed the general situation of humanity as one where population pressure put such strains on the ability of natural resources to produce subsistence that equilibrium would be attained only by various catastrophes. His influence has been strong and persistent, largely because of his forceful rhetoric and primitive scaremongering…He would have been very surprised to discover that Britain in 2003 would have only 1.2 per cent of its working population in agriculture and a life expectation of 78 years.”
― Angus Maddison, Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History

“I believe in a world in which science is the key for supporting the
development of a happy future for humanity. So, I advocate for such a
situation in which scientists would speak louder. If science is silent, there is no way to solve high priority problems at a global level, such as: the gap between developed and undeveloped countries, poverty, limited energy resources, limited food and even drinking water (especially related to the population growth phenomenon), global warming and rapid climate
changes.”
― Eraldo Banovac

“Capitalists grow wealth. Socialists redistribute wealth.... but population grows, so the Socialist population control kicks in in the form of eugenics.”
― A.E. Samaan

“...it is quite possible that in only seventy years our population will amount to about eleven millions, over half of whom will be old age pensioners.”
― George Orwell

“Humanity cannot keep expanding in numbers and relentless destruction and still expect everything to be ‘ok’. We moved far beyond ‘ok’ a very long time ago, the world is in crisis because of us. To believe otherwise is dangerous and delusional. In this finite world we have only two choices - to change ourselves to fit within it or die out.”
― Luke Eastwood

“The actual issue is not the excess of population but the actions of population.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Parents with one child or two child or more child all are contributor to population explosion.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“It is time to award and reward those responsible partners who decide not to be reproducing parents.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“A huge population doesn't break the differences among them, they break the laws made for them.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Capitalist and economist in their souls don't see newborns as kids but as consumers.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“By not imposing laws to control the population, we are issuing the nature a license to kill the population.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“I think the government made the plague on purpose to get rid of the population growth.”
― Sheldon Pacotti, Chris Todd , and Austin Grossman

“Over the past millennium, world population rose nearly 24-fold, per capita income 14-fold, GDP 338-fold. This contrasts sharply with the preceding millennium, when world population grew by only a sixth, and per capita income fell. From the year 1000 to 1820, growth was predominantly extensive. Most of the GDP increase went to accommodate a four-fold increase in population. The advance in per capita income was a slow crawl—the world average increased only by half over a period of eight centuries.

In the year 1000, the average infant could expect to live about 24 years. A third died in the first year of life. Hunger and epidemic disease ravaged the survivors. By 1820, life expectation had risen to 36 years in the west, with only marginal improvement elsewhere.

After 1820, world development became much more dynamic. By 2003, income per head had risen nearly ten-fold, population six-fold. Per capita income rose by 1.2 per cent a year: 24 times as fast as in 1000–1820. Population grew about 1 per cent a year: six times as fast as in 1000–1820. Life expectation increased to 76 years in the west and 63 in the rest of the world.”
― Angus Maddison, Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History

“According to Robert S. McNamara, former president of the World Bank, without firm action to further reduce the population growth rate, world population will not stabilize below eleven billion. "At the national level," states McNamara, "rapid population growth translates into a steadily worsening employment future, massive city growth, pressure on food supplies, degradation of the environment, an increase in the number of 'absolute poor,' and a stimulus to authoritarian government.”
― John Jefferson Davis, Christ's Victorious Kingdom

“I don't think we can name a single poor nation where population control programs have worked. I don't think we can name a single affluent country that has not reduced population growth, often below ZPG.”
― Wallace Kaufman

“With universal basic income for everyone, there was an endless supply of money for basic level simulations and there were plenty of jobs for those who wanted to work to upgrade their simulation. For a while, the only problem was decreasing populations as fewer people had the money, time or patience to raise children.”
― Peter Clifford Nichols, The Word of Bob: an AI Minecraft Villager