Population Quotes

“You can't just look at the number of people. You have to look at their consumption.”

“If we are to have a stable world, we must have a stable population.”

“Basically, then, there are only two kinds of solutions to the population problem. One is a 'birth rate solution,' in which we find ways to lower the birth rate. The other is a 'death rate solution,' in which ways to raise the death rate–war, famine, pestilence–find us.”

“A hundred years ago, there were one-and-a-half billion people on Earth. Now, over six billion crowd our fragile planet. But even so, there are still places barely touched by humanity.”

“Nothing gives me quite so much joy as when I see a pregnant woman walk past.”

“It is not the land that is over-populated, but the people.”

“Solving the population problem is not going to solve the problems of racism... of sexism... of religious intolerance... of war... of gross economic inequality. But if you don't solve the population problem, you're not going to solve any of those problems.”

“Basically, what we're talking about is management of the world's population.”

“Every person who is added to the population puts a burden on the environment and on the life-support systems of the planet.”

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

“The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation.”

“The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.”

“No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation.”

“Any species that overpopulates will self-destruct.”

“A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.”

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

“The paramount issue of our age is not the atom bomb but the mushrooming population of the world.”

“Adding more people causes problems, but people are also the means to solve these problems.”

“The most important benefit of population size and growth is the increase it brings to the stock of useful knowledge.”

“The constant effort towards population, which is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased.”