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Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage.

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

If we do not voluntarily bring population growth under control in the next one or two decades, the nature will do it for us in the most brutal way, whether we like it or not.

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

By improving health, empowering women, population growth comes down.

Population growth is straining the Earth's resources to the breaking point, and educating girls is the single most important factor in stabilizing that. That, plus helping women gain political and economic power and safeguarding their reproductive rights.

Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today

The key thing you can do to reduce population growth is actually improve health.

'Smart growth' destroys the environment. 'Dumb growth' destroys the environment. The only difference is that 'smart growth' does it with good taste. It's like booking passage on the Titanic. Whether you go first-class or steerage, the result is the same.

Just to keep up with population growth, on average our economy needs to be adding about 125,000 jobs per month.

We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people.

I would be absolutely astounded if population growth and industrialisation and all the stuff we are pumping into the atmosphere hadn't changed the climatic balance. Of course it has. There is no valid argument for denial.

Excessive (population) growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife

As a woman leader, I thought I brought a different kind of leadership. I was interested in women's issues, in bringing down the population growth rate... as a woman, I entered politics with an additional dimension - that of a mother.

Short of nuclear war itself, population growth is the gravest issue the world faces. If we do not act, the problem will be solved by famine, riots, insurrection and war.

It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It's not just climate change; it's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.

The hungry world cannot be fed until and unless the growth of its resources and the growth of its population come into balance. Each man and woman-and each nation-must make decisions of conscience and policy in the face of this great problem.

Environmentalists have been outspoken in their support of smaller family size and abortion rights as keys to reducing global warming. But when it comes to immigration, the single biggest contributor to population growth in the industrial world, they stand largely silent.

The negative impact of population growth on all of our planetary ecosystems is becoming appallingly evident.

We must alert and organise the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.

The combination of population growth and the growth in consumption is a danger that we are not prepared for and something we will need global co-operation on.

Rapid population growth and technological innovation, combined with our lack of understanding about how the natural systems of which we are a part work, have created a mess.

Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, where the population growth is very high, whereby you don't have the mortgage low yet. Still the demand outstrips supply by much.

The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct. To say, as many do, that the difficulties of nations are not due to people, but to poor ideology and land-use management is sophistic.

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An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised)

• Chapter I, paragraph 9, lines 1-2
• Chapter I, paragraph 18, lines 1-2
• Chapter IV, paragraph 13, lines 11-15
• Chapter V, paragraph 2, lines 1-5
• Chapter V, paragraph 3, lines 5-8
• Chapter V, paragraph 13, lines 1-3
• Chapter V, paragraph 13, lines 8-13
• Chapter V, paragraph 23, lines 3-7
• Chapter V, paragraph 25, lines 4-5
• Chapter VII, paragraph 10, lines 8-10
• Chapter VII, paragraph 20, lines 2-4
• Chapter IX, paragraph 7, lines 1-4
• Chapter IX, paragraph 8, lines 14-16
• Chapter IX, paragraph 9, lines 1-3

• Chapter IX, paragraph 14, lines 22-27 ( see also eugenics )
• Chapter X, paragraph 7, line 1
• Chapter X, paragraph 29, lines 12-15
• Chapter XI, paragraph 1, lines 6-8
• Chapter XII, paragraph 6, lines 8-9
• Chapter XIII, paragraph 2, lines 19-22
• Chapter XIV, paragraph 9
• Chapter XVIII, paragraph 11, lines 16-17
• Chapter XIX, paragraph 2, lines 1-6
• Chapter XIX, paragraph 15, line 1

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

• 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.
• If I saw a glass of wine repeatedly presented to a man, and he took no notice of it, I should be apt to think that he was blind or uncivil. A juster philosophy might teach me rather to think that my eyes deceived me, and that the offer was not really what I conceived it to be.
• The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand years.
• The perpetual tendency of the race of man to increase beyond the means of subsistence is one of the general laws of animated nature, which we can have no reason to expect to change.
• The immediate cause of the increase of population is the excess of the births above deaths; and the rate of increase, or the period of doubling, depends upon the proportion which the excess of the births above the deaths bears to the population.
• 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.
• The finest minds seem to be formed rather by efforts at original thinking, by endeavours to form new combinations, and to discover new truths, than by passively receiving the impressions of other men's ideas.
• we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavouring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations.*12 But above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders. [ Book IV, Chapter V ]

Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

• Advertisement to the Second Edition, p. vii
• Book I, Introduction, p. 1
• Book I, Introduction, p. 5
• Book I, Introduction, p. 8
• Book I, Introduction, p. 9
• Book I, Chapter I, Of The Definitions of Wealth and of Productive Labour, Section II, p. 40
• Book I, Chapter I, Of The Definitions of Wealth and of Productive Labour, Section II, p. 43
• Book I, Chapter I, Of The Definitions of Wealth and of Productive Labour, Section II, p. 49
• Book I, Chapter II, On the Nature, Causes, and Measures of Value, Section IV, p. 88
• Book I, Chapter III, Of the Rent of Land, Section IX, p. 214
• Book I, Chapter III, Of the Rent of Land, Section IX, p. 216
• Book I, Chapter V, Of the Profits of Capital, Section III, p. 279
• Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section I, p. 309
• Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section IV, p. 349 ( See also; Says Law )
• Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section V, p. 355
• Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section VII, p. 374
• Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section VIII, p. 382-383
• Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section VIII, p. 384
• Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 400 (See also: David Ricardo and aggregate demand )
• Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 403
• Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 406
• Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 408
• Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 410
• Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 412-413
• Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section X, p. 414 (See also: Karl Marx , Capital Volume I , Chapter 25, Section 4(e), p. 742
• Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section X, p. 422
• Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section X, p. 430
• Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section X, p. 437

Quotes about Malthus

• Aristotle , Politics, I, III-17
• Ambrose Bierce , The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
• William R. Catton , Malthus: More Relevant Than Ever
• Charles Dickens , A Christmas Carol , Verlag Edition, Berlin 1885, p. 113
• Friedrich Engels , The Condition of the Working Class in England
• Felipe Fernández-Armesto , Millennium, Epilogue, p. 723
• John Kenneth Galbraith , The Age of Uncertainty , Chapter 4, p. 109-110
• William Hazlitt, The Spirit of the Age; Or, Contemporary Portraits
• Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf , Chapter IV, Munich, p. 131
• Robert Heilbroner , The Worldly Philosophers , Chapter IV, p. 84
• William Stanley Jevons , The Theory of Political Economy, Chapter VIII, p. 214
• Peter Kropotkin , Fields, Factories and Workshops (1899)
• James Howard Kunstler , The Long Emergency , Chapter 1, pp. 6–7
• Rosa Luxemburg The Accumulation of Capital (1913) Chapter 14. Translated from the German by Agnes Schwarzschild
• Karl Marx , Grundrisse , Notebook III, The Chapter on Capital, p. 271
• Tom Murphy, " The Cult of Civilization " (October 4, 2022)
• David Ricardo , On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation , (Third Edition),Chapter II, p. 41
• Eric Roll , A History of Economic Thought, Chapter 4, p. 143
• Bertrand Russell , Unpopular Essays, Chapter VII, p. 132
• Jean-Baptiste Say , A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition), Book II, Chapter XI, Section I, p. 375
• Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations , Book I, Chapter 8, p. 97

External links

• Malthus's population essay

• Academics from England
• Economists from England
• Classical economists
• Philosophers from England
• Essayists from England
• Clergy from England
• Theologians from England
• Biologists from England
• 1766 births
• 1834 deaths
• Anglicans from the United Kingdom
• University of Cambridge alumni
• Fellows of the Royal Society

• PICTURE QUOTES
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179 Thought-provoking Population Quotes to Shed Light On

Quotes about population can provide insights into the topic of human numbers on Earth. They offer perspectives on the size and growth of populations, highlighting the importance of understanding this aspect of our world. Such quotes can provoke thought and discussion about issues related to population, including its impact on resources, the environment, and social dynamics. They can inspire us to reflect on the challenges and opportunities that come with a changing population.

Famous Population Quotes

Short population quotes, overpopulation quotes, india population quotes, growing population quotes, world population quotes, human population quotes, population control quotes, population growth quotes, increasing population quotes, population problem quotes, aging population quotes, population density quotes.

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The most important benefit of population size and growth is the increase it brings to the stock of useful knowledge. Minds matter economically as much as, or more than, hands or mouths. — Julian Simon 26

Overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organise peace on this planet — Albert Einstein 43

Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage. — Jacques Yves Cousteau 63

The negative impact of population growth on all of our planetary ecosystems is becoming appallingly evident. — David Rockefeller 26

World population needs to be decreased by 50% — Henry A. Kissinger 54

Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment — David Attenborough 208

Short of nuclear war itself, population growth is the gravest issue the world faces. If we do not act, the problem will be solved by famine, riots, insurrection and war. — Robert McNamara 35

Excessive (population) growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife — Confucius 16

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. — Thomas Malthus 49

Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed. — David R. Brower 31

I believe that human overpopulation is the fundamental problem on Earth Today" and, "We humans have become a disease, the Humanpox — David Foreman 47

Humanity, in the desperate attempt to fit 8 billion or more people on the planet and give them a higher standard of living, is at risk of pushing the rest of life off the globe. — E. O. Wilson 48

Our recent divergence from a small population explains another important fact, one that every human ought to know: we are a genetically homogenous species. — Daniel Lieberman 83

The wealth of a country is its working people. — Theodor Herzl 56

A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in.. And how many want out. — Tony Blair 24

• Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism. — John Updike
• Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today — Jacques Yves Cousteau
• I don't know … but I think this Ebola epidemic is a form of population control. — Chris Brown
• Budget consolidation and economic growth are two sides of the same coin. — Angela Merkel
• My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize. — Hank Johnson
• The rich get richer, and the poor get babies. — American Proverbs
• Gangs are only 1% of our population here—but they control a lot of territories. — Nayib Bukele
• The Han make up 90% of China’s population and they dominate Chinese politics and business. — Tim Marshall
• The world's population will multiply more rapidly than the available food supply. — Thomas Malthus
• There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population. — Moshe Dayan

Population Image Quotes

Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. — Isaac Asimov 109

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist. — Kenneth E. Boulding 88

In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9% per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder. — Stephen Hawking 68

Cannibalism is a radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation. — Prince Philip 46

There are substitutes for oil; there is no substitute for fresh water. — Paul R. Ehrlich 33

It's terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn't even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable. — Jacques Yves Cousteau 33

The way to do great science is to stay away from subjects that are overpopulated, and go to the frontiers. — James D. Watson 31

In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation. — Prince Philip 31

When you consider the overpopulation in this world ... homosexuality is completely underrated in this society. — Doug Stanhope 27

Overpopulation in the United States will become THE single greatest issue facing Americans in the 21st century. We either solve it proactively or nature will solve it brutally for us via water shortages, energy crisis, air pollution, gridlock, species extinction and worse. — Frosty Wooldridge 26

India is a major power, with a youthful and hardworking population, and has an incredibly bright future. I hope the U.K. can be part of that journey as a close partner. — Rishi Sunak 54

China is building cities for a 20 to 40 percent increase in population. India is quickly growing. The carbon footprints of that and other development around the world are overwhelming. — Frank Gehry 9

Everybody knows that the great reversed triangle of land, with its base in the north and its apex in the south, which is called India, embraces fourteen hundred thousand square miles, upon which is spread unequally a population of one hundred and eighty millions of souls. — Jules Verne 3

Although when Christianity appeared the total population of the planet was only a fraction of that of the twentieth century, most of the earth's surface was quite outside the Mediterranean world, Persia, India, and China. — Kenneth Scott Latourette 3

Who, in the midst of passion, is vigilant against illness? Who listens to the reports of recently decimated populations in Spain, India, Bora Bora, when new lips, tongues and poems fill the world? — Lauren Groff 2

My most visible goal is to do something in nutrition to children in India, and pregnant mothers. Because that would change the mental and physical health of our population in years to come. — Ratan Tata 0

In India's distant past, when the population was low, the blessing given a woman was, 'May you have many children.' Most of our epics and literature stress this wish, and the idea that a woman should have many children hasn't declined. — Indira Gandhi 0

Why not look at Indonesia? It will be the third biggest country in the world in population in 25 years' time - after India and China. — Martin Sorrell 0

People must understand the Clean Ganga program, as an economic activity also. The Gangetic plains account for 40% of our population. They have over one hundred towns, and thousands of villages. — Narendra Modi 0

What the United States has done hasn't always been liked or popular. But if you look at some of the most populous places in the world - China, India - the United States is not only respected but, in fact, popular. — Condoleezza Rice 0

We've got a great percentage of our population that, to our great shame, either cannot or, equally unfortunate, will not read. And that portion of our public is growing. Those people are suckers for the demagogue. — Walter Cronkite 92

The debate around the ageing population should, in my view, focus much more on how we grow the active, working population. — Nicola Sturgeon 65

Since 1850, burning of fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas has increased 100 times to produce energy as the world has industrialized to serve the world's more than 6 billion and growing population. — John Olver 56

To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet, only one grain will grow. — Metrodorus of Chios 48

The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in the same old uncontrollable way. If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us and it is the poor people of the world who will suffer most — David Attenborough 21

Brain power improves by brain use, just as our bodily strength grows with exercise. And there is no doubt that a large proportion of the female population, from school days to late middle age, now have very complicated lives indeed. — A. N. Wilson 14

Another growing problem for the party is its ability to feed the populated. More than 40% of arable land is now polluted or has thinning topsoil. — Tim Marshall 12

It is common sense that when women are able to plan their pregnancies, populations grow more slowly and as a result so do greenhouse gas emissions. Providing access to contraception and preventative health should be one of the many effective strategies used to fight climate change. — Kavita Ramdas 8

With the world's human population now at seven billion and growing, and the demand for technology and modern conveniences increasing, we can't control all our negative impacts. But we have to find better ways to live within the limits nature and its cycles impose. — David Suzuki 7

It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It's not just climate change; it's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now. — David Attenborough 6

No other country in the world imprisons so many of its racial or ethnic minorities. The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid — Michelle Alexander 195

The greatest contraceptive one can have in the developing world is the knowledge that your children will live — Julius Nyerere 161

Divide the world into regional groups as a transitional stage to world government. Populations will more readily abandon their national loyalty to a vague regional loyalty than they will for a world authority. Later the regions can be brought together all the way into a single world dictatorship. — Joseph Stalin 134

Though Muslims make up roughly 25 percent of the world’s population, they comprise 92.9 percent of terrorists on the FBI list. — Gad Saad 81

The time is coming when the pressure of population on the means of subsistence will be felt here as it is now felt in Europe and Asia. Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history - the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled. — Josiah Strong 80

Without the Nile, there would be no one in Egypt. It may be a huge country, but the vast majority of its 84 million population lives within a few miles of the Nile. Measured by the area in which people dwell, Egypt is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. — Tim Marshall 71

The first wave of the bioterrorism is a respiratory virus that spread across the world, and affected relatively few people—about one percent of many populations—but generated great fear. — Peter A. McCullough 69

There are 1.4 billion reasons people why China may succeed, and 1.4 billion reasons why it may not surpass America as the greatest power in the world. — Tim Marshall 69

Infectious diseases introduced with Europeans, like smallpox and measles, spread from one Indian tribe to another, far in advance of Europeans themselves, and killed an estimated 95% of the New World's Indian population. — Jared Diamond 68

We simply can no longer afford to deny the full potential of one half of the population. The world needs to tap into the talent and wisdom of women. Whether the issue is food security, economic recovery, health, or peace and security, the participation of women is needed now more than ever. — Michelle Bachelet 67

Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo - obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other. — Angela Davis 166

The Delaware Estuary has sustained a human population for thousands of years, but by the end of the 19th Century, increased population and industrialization had transformed much of the upper Estuary watershed. — Jim Gerlach 89

This not a war. This is a systematic massacre of civilians with destruction of a densely populated area to make it uninhabitable; by cowards hiding behind technology. This is ethnic cleansing. A war is human fighting human. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb 82

One-fourth of humanity must be eliminated from the social body. We are in charge of God's selection process for planet Earth. He selects, we destroy. We are the riders of the pale horse, Death. — Barbara Marx Hubbard 58

We receive reports now on a daily basis from our own people on the ground in Darfur on widespread atrocities and grave violations of human rights against the civilian population. — Jan Egeland 55

No country that permits firearms to be widely and randomly distributed among its population - especially firearms that are capable of wounding and killing human beings - can expect to escape violence, and a great deal of violence. — Margaret Mead 55

It has long been recognized that an essential element in protecting human rights was a widespread knowledge among the population of what their rights are and how they can be defended. — Boutros Boutros-Ghali 51

...the chief cause for the impending collapse of the world - the cause sufficient in and by itself - is the enormous growth of the human population: the human flood. The worst enemy of life is too much life: the excess of human life. — Pentti Linkola 49

This planet might be able to support perhaps as many as half a billion people who could live a sustainable life in relative comfort. Human populations must be greatly diminished, and as quickly as possible to limit further environmental damage. — Eric Pianka 46

Right now over 70 percent of the world population is convinced that something serious has to be done about the dangers facing the planet. ...Most of humanity wants to know how to make the change. It's one of those tipping-point times where things can change unbelievably fast. — Paul Ray 41

A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. — Aldous Huxley 83

The Covenant of the League of Nations had envisaged sponsoring only the protection of certain categories of men: national minorities and populations of territories controlled by other countries. — Rene Cassin 58

Tobacco control is clearly a number one priority in Europe, not only aimed at men, particularly the male populations of Central and Eastern Europe, but increasingly targeted towards women, especially in Northern Europe. — Peter Boyle 45

Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race. — Margaret Sanger 42

If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. — Prince Philip 36

If there were a button I could press, I would sacrifice myself without hesitating, if it meant millions of people would die. — Pentti Linkola 35

Because of poor posture, practically 95% of our population suffers from varying degrees of spinal curvature, not to mention more serious ailments. Good posture can be successfully acquired only when the entire mechanism of the body is under perfect control. — Joseph Pilates 25

We must speak more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage. — Mikhail Gorbachev 21

The United Nation's goal is to reduce population selectively by encouraging abortion, forced sterilization, and control of human reproduction, and regards two-thirds of the human population as excess baggage, with 350,000 people to be eliminated per day. — Jacques Yves Cousteau 18

If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full. — Bertrand Russell 14

We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. — Enoch Powell 182

Ireland added around 2.75% to its population this year through immigration - in a single year. That means that 1 in every 36 people you see is a new arrival. You need not be particularly anti-immigration to recognise that’s an enormous number. — Philip Pilkington 74

Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg 59

Child labor perpetuates poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, population growth and other social problems. — Kailash Satyarthi 55

As a woman leader, I thought I brought a different kind of leadership. I was interested in women's issues, in bringing down the population growth rate... as a woman, I entered politics with an additional dimension - that of a mother. — Benazir Bhutto 34

No circumstance would prevent over-population so effectually as a general raising of the customary standard of comfort among the poorer classes. If they had accustomed themselves to a more comfortable style of living, they would use every effort not again to sink below it. — Millicent Fawcett 20

Rapid population growth and technological innovation, combined with our lack of understanding about how the natural systems of which we are a part work, have created a mess. — David Suzuki 18

Those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational. — James Lovelock 17

Surely it is time for Jews, worried over the huge growth of Arabs in Israel, to consider finishing the exchange of populations that began 35 years ago. — Meir Kahane 15

It's perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth. Jobs and wages depend on science and technology. — Carl Sagan 15

In Washington State, the immigrant population has grown by 42 percent in the five years between 2000 and 2005 - which is an increase from 8 percent to 10.6 percent of the overall population - and the jobless rate in the state has hit a 6 year low. — Dave Reichert 73

There's no point bleating about the future of pandas, polar bears and tigers when we're not addressing the one single factor putting more pressure on the eco system than any other - namely the ever-increasing population. — Chris Packham 51

During the past three years spectacular progress has been made in increasing wheat, rice, and maize production in several of the most populous developing countries of southern Asia, where widespread famine appeared inevitable only five years ago — Norman Borlaug 49

One must take draconian measures of demographic reduction against the will of the populations. Reducing the birth rate has proved to be impossible or insufficient. One must therefore increase the mortality rate. How? By natural means. Famine and sickness — Robert McNamara 43

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second. — Thomas Malthus 43

A successful society is characterized by a rising living standard for its population, increasing investment in factories and basic infrastructure, and the generation of additional surplus, which is invested in generating new discoveries in science and technology. — Robert Trout 34

Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny. — Jared Diamond 33

Living in the midst of abundance we have the greatest difficulty in seeing that the supply of natural wealth is limited and that the constant increase of population is destined to reduce the American standard of living unless we deal more sanely with our resources. — Wallace Carothers 22

After all the fertile land in the immediate neighbourhood of the first settlers were cultivated, if capital and population increased, more food would be required, and it could only be procured from land not so advantageously situated. — David Ricardo 20

The aging and declining population will have far-reaching impacts. Declining fertility rates will possibly increase immigration. The structure of family and society will inevitably change. — Toshihiko Fukui 15

We have a problem that we have to fix in El Salvador - We have been sending migrants to the United States and elsewhere since the '80s and now we have almost a quarter of our population living abroad. — Nayib Bukele 77

The problem is some of the populism on both the far left and the far right, it can make a Tweet but not make a policy. And, you know, when you are dealing with issues that are as important and serious as this, I understand why people search for simple solutions. — Tony Blair 54

The aging and decreasing population is a serious problem in many developed countries today. In Japan's case, these demographic changes are taking place at a more rapid pace than any other country has ever experienced. — Toshihiko Fukui 18

People often ask, "What is the single most important environmental population problem facing the world today?" A flip answer would be, "The single most important problem is our misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem! — Jared Diamond 11

There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort. — Norman Borlaug 7

Can you think of any problem, in any area of human endeavour, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally? — Albert Allen Bartlett 6

I have no doubt that the fundamental problem the planet faces is the enormous increase in the human population — David Attenborough 6

The problem of numbers can only be dealt with by recognizing that people have a fundamental right to economic security. If you provide them with economic and environmental security, the population will stabilize itself. — Vandana Shiva 5

In what I think is the most serious problem the world faces, which is the population explosion, we will come I think to a time when measures that are not even dreamt of now will become necessary. — Charlton Heston 5

It's the biggest public health problem in America, the rising rates of obesity among our young people and very heavy statistics among our adult population. — William J. Clinton 4

Aging is just like any deterioration of the body. It fulfills every category of what we call a disease except one: it impacts more than half the population. — David Sinclair 79

During the age of Atlantis, the low population density and the resulting purity of the earth's aura, made conditions ideal for discovering secret meditation techniques. — Frederick Lenz 48

In Europe we have cities wealthier and more populous than yours and we are not happy. You dream of your posterity; but your posterity will look back to yours as the golden age, and envy those who first burst into this silent, splendid Nature. — James Bryce 47

We will establish a policy system to boost birth rates and pursue a proactive national strategy in response to population ageing. — Xi Jinping 47

Donald Trump is using an age-old trick of right wing populism, much like George Wallace, much like Joe McCarthy, Pitchfork Ben Tillman who in the 1880s and `90s was a rabid hateful racists who whipped up hate and hysteria for his own political benefit. — Keith Ellison 25

If I were a dictator I should make it compulsory for every member of the population between the ages of four and eighty to listen to Mozart for at least a quarter of an hour daily for the coming five years. — Thomas Beecham 24

The aging of the U.S. population is a theme that we believe strongly in and the health care sector is really right in the bulls eye of this particular theme. — John Zimmerman 14

Some calamities - the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 - have come like summer lightning, as bolts from the blue. The looming crisis of America's Ponzi entitlement structure is different. Driven by the demographics of an aging population, its causes, timing and scope are known. — George Will 12

Lions mane may be our first smart mushroom. It is a safe, edible fungus that appears to confer cognitive benefits on our aging population. — Paul Stamets 8

Either Stone Age man was a technological wizard, who carefully removed his technological achievements so as not to upset his inferior progeny, or our population dwindled from a once astronomical size to the mere three billions of today. — Heinz von Foerster 8

I was in Taiwan recently and was completely amazed by the density of population. It makes New York look like no one is out on the streets. — Richard Meier 5

I would hate to see the state of Wisconsin make another mistake and locate another casino in a high-density population area — John Warren Kindt 3

The disadvantages of a decentralized, spread out urban area are tremendous, and the environmental damage of urban sprawl cannot be ignored. As a large city, Tokyo must be used more efficiently and the population density increased. — Minoru Mori 3

Less cars on the road means productivity and jobs growth, as it allows for the more efficient movement of goods and services and encourages greater urban population density. — Anthony Albanese 2

In Hong Kong there is agglomeration beyond my fondest imaginings. The Kowloon district claims a population density four times that of New York City. — P. J. O'Rourke 0

The density of human population combined with the development of powerful and largely unconstrained technology has given us the problems of the anthropocene and the serious possibility of self-caused extinction. — Dale Jamieson 0

In Europe, it's common to hear about young professionals living with their parents. With the continent's high rents and taxes and its population density, it makes sense. — Rosecrans Baldwin 0

By the mid 1970s, the great downtown bookstores had begun to disappear as their customers migrated from city to suburb where population density was too thin to support major backlist retailers. — Jason Epstein 0

Spend time alone in areas of low population density, where you can feel the stillness. Go out into the desert or up into the mountains or to the ocean where there aren't too many people. — Frederick Lenz 0

People Writing About Population

More population quotes.

As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome. — Noam Chomsky 318

I can concede that the government has no knowledge of the people, but I believe the people know less of the government. There are useless officials, evil, if you like, but there are also good ones, and these are not able to accomplish anything because they encounter an inert mass, the population that takes little part in matters that concern them. — Jose Rizal 205

Cause the registration of all firearms on some pretext, with the view of confiscating them and leaving the population defenseless. — Unknown Author 163

The whole plan of extermination was nothing less than a cold blooded, calculated political measure, having for its object the annihilation of a superior element in the population, which might prove troublesome, and to this must be added the motive of greed. — Fridtjof Nansen 142

I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigarette can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents. That's why our problem is so great; the greatest percentage of our population is composed of Spanish-speaking persons, most of who are low mentally, because of social and racial conditions. — Harry J. Anslinger 136

Information is Power. Think For Yourself. CAUTION: proper use of the brain is not endorsed by federal governments nor huge corporations involved in serious financial profit from a brainwashed and enslaved population. Mild discomfort may occur as confusing independent thought challenges popular views of the world. — Timothy Leary 123

Southern girls are God's gift to the entire male population. There is absolutely no woman finer than one raised below the mason-dixon line and once you go southern may the good Lord help you - you never go back — Kenny Chesney 118

But the Jews will also be believers, so you can say that all the saints, both gentiles and Jews, will go into the millennial kingdom and populate the earth. — Tim LaHaye 97

In order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets. [...] The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. — Cecil Rhodes 85

Of all the advantages of farming, the most fundamental and consequential is that more calories allow people to have bigger families, leading to population growth. But larger populations and their effects on human settlement patterns also fostered new kinds of infectious diseases. Without a doubt, these diseases have been and remain the most devastating of the evolutionary mismatches caused by the Agricultural Revolution. — Daniel Lieberman 85

If the Chinese population were to be given a free vote, the unity of the Han might begin to crack, or, more likely, the countryside and urban areas would come into conflict. — Tim Marshall 83

At its closest point, Japan is 120 miles away from the Eurasian landmass, which is among the reasons why it has never been successfully invaded. The Chinese are some 500 miles away and the Russian forces are usually far away because of the extremely inhospitable climate and sparse population on their eastern shore. — Tim Marshall 83

Look at what the Omar of Qatar is doing, for example - the King of Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain. There are reform movements taking place, efforts to broaden the political participation of the populations of the region. — Frank Carlucci 80

A total of 1,580 people, the civilian population, suffered as a result of the bloody wave of terrorist acts that swept over Moscow and other towns and villages of our country. — Boris Yeltsin 80

Argentina lacks the size and population to become the primary regional power in Latin America, which looks to be Brazil’s destiny, but it has the quality of land to create a standard of living comparable to that of the European countries. If Argentina gets its economics right, its geography will enable it to become the power it has never been. — Tim Marshall 76

The population suffers from a fear of change, for their conditioning assumes a static identity, and challenging ones belief system, usually results in insult and apprehension, for being wrong is erroneously associated with failure. When in fact, to be proven wrong should be a celebrated, for it is elevating someone to a new level of understanding. — Peter Joseph 75

Russia and Norway have a dispute over the Svalbard Islands, the northernmost point on earth with a settled population. Most countries recognize the islands as being under Norwegian sovereignty, but the biggest island has a growing population of Russian migrants who have assembled around the coal-mining industry there. The mines are not profitable, but the Russian community serves as a useful tool in furthering Moscow’s claims on the islands. Norway knows what is coming and has made the Arctic its foreign policy priority. Its air force regularly intercepts Russian fighter jets approaching its borders; the heightened tensions have caused it to move the center of military operations from the south to the north, and it is building an Arctic battalion. Canada and Denmark are expanding their Arctic military capabilities as well. — Tim Marshall 73

A wealthy landowner cannot cultivate and improve his farm without spreading comfort and well-being around him. Rich and abundant crops, a numerous population and a prosperous countryside are the rewards for his efforts. — Antoine Lavoisier 72

The population is made up of four types of people: A small number hunt witches. A large number go along with the hunt. A larger number are silent. A tiny number oppose it. The final group – as if by magic – become witches. — Bret Weinstein 72

Governments have actually tried to block early treatment of Covid patients, so we created a home patient guide. We broke through to the people, and the people who got sick with COVID called in to get medications from mail-order distribution pharmacies. So without the government even knowing what went on, we crushed the epidemic here in the United States towards the end of December and January. We basically took care of the pandemic with about 500 doctors and telemedicine services. And to this day we treat about 25 percent of the US COVID-19 population that actually are at high risk, over age 50 with medical problems or present with severe symptoms. And we basically handled the pandemic, and at the same time we’ve tried to keep ourselves above the political fray. — Peter A. McCullough 71

Si tenés gobiernos populistas que lo único que proponen es la redistribución del ingreso, el gasto público que castigan al ahorro, te va a ir mal. Argentina hace 100 años que hace esto, entró al siglo XX siendo el país más rico del mundo y ahora somos un desastre. — Javier Milei 71

In Conclusion

These quotes serve as reminders that population is a fundamental aspect of our existence, and its significance cannot be ignored. They emphasize the need to address population-related issues with careful consideration and informed decision-making. By exploring quotes about population, we can gain a deeper understanding of the complexities and implications of this aspect of our global community.

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Many prominent individuals have expressed concern about population.

Sir David Attenborough, naturalist and broadcaster, Population Matters Patron (born 1926)

“All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people and harder — and ultimately impossible — to solve with ever more people.”

“I support Population Matters because I think if we keep on growing, we’re not only going to damage nature, but we’re likely to see more and more inequality and human suffering.” 

“One thing you can say is that in places where women are in charge of their bodies, where they have the vote, where they are allowed to dictate what they do and what they want, whether it’s proper medical facilities for birth control, the birth rate falls.”

“The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in the same old uncontrolled way. If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us.”

“As I see it, humanity needs to reduce its impact on the Earth urgently and there are three ways to achieve this: we can stop consuming so many resources, we can change our technology and we can reduce the growth of our population.”

“Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it’s time we controlled the population to allow the survival of the environment.”

Dame Jane Goodall, primatologist and conservationist, Population Matters Patron (born 1934)

“Educating and empowering women and girls and providing family planning information enables more people to choose the size of their families. These are the kind of positive actions governments can take, and must take if we’re to address the biodiversity loss we’re facing.”

“It’s our population growth that underlies just about every single one of the problems that we’ve inflicted on the planet. If there were just a few of us, then the nasty things we do wouldn’t really matter and Mother Nature would take care of it — but there are so many of us.”

“This organisation, Population Matters, is so very important, because this is one of the most important issues that we face today. We can’t go on like this, we can’t push human population growth under the carpet. It’s been shown all around the world that as women’s education improves, family size tends to drop. I would encourage every single conservation organisation, every single government organisation, to consider the absurdity of unlimited economic development on a planet with finite natural resources.”

“The climate crisis that now threatens life on Earth as we know it results from a combination of different human activities, including the pollution of land, air and water, our reckless burning of fossil fuels, the destruction of forests, extreme poverty, and the unsustainable life styles of so many of us.  And all of this is impacted by the relentless growth of human populations and their livestock. Educating and empowering women and girls and providing family planning information enables more people to choose the size of their families.  And choosing to have fewer children is one of the most important choices we can make.”

Chris Packham, naturalist and broadcaster, Population Matters Patron (born 1961)

“There’s no point bleating about the future of pandas, polar bears and tigers when we’re not addressing the one single factor that’s putting more pressure on the ecosystem than any other — namely the ever-increasing size of the world’s population.”

“I support Population Matters because they’re the only people pointing out the obvious link between ever more people and ever less wildlife.”

E.O. Wilson, entomologist and conservationist (1929-2021)

“We are in a bottleneck of overpopulation and wasteful consumption that could push half of Earth’s species to extinction in this century.”

“The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical concept.”

Wendo Aszed, Founder, Dandelion Africa

“Kenya is becoming a desert. There’s pressure on the environment because we use charcoal and firewood. The larger the family, the more it consumes. There’s no provision to plant trees because trees cost money. If nothing is done soon there won’t be any resources left. Communities are beginning to realise that it’s better for the eco-system around them if they have smaller families.”  

Carl Sagan, astrophysicist and science communicator (1934-1996)

“Our job is to bring about a worldwide demographic transition and flatten out that exponential curve—by eliminating grinding poverty, making safe and effective birth control methods widely available, and extending real political power (executive, legislative, judicial, military, and in institutions influencing public opinion) to women. If we fail, some other process, less under out control, will do it for us.”

Jacques Cousteau, ocean explorer and conservationist (1910-1997)

“We must alert and organise the world’s people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises — exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.”

Ashley Judd, actor and UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador (born 1968)

“If we invest in girls and women, the world and all of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals will advance forward rapidly as a result.”

“I figured it was selfish for us to pour our resources into making our ‘own’ babies when those very resources and energy could not only help children already here, but through advocacy and service transform the world into a place where no child ever needs to be born into poverty and abuse again.”

Paul Hawken, Founder, Project Drawdown

“Educating girls lays a foundation for vibrant lives for girls and women, their families, and their communities. It is also one of the most powerful levers available for avoiding emissions by curbing population growth.”

Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (born 1997)

“When girls are educated and when they stay in schools, they get married later in their lives, then they have less children and that helps us to reduce the impacts of climate change that the population increase brings.”

Vanessa Nakate, Ugandan climate activist (born 1996)

“Girls who have been to school grow up to be empowered women. They are not forced into early marriage, and they tend to have healthier, smaller families, reducing emissions well into the future.”

Bella Lack, youth ambassador for Born Free Foundation and Jane Goodall Institute (born 2002)

“We keep being fed the idea that somehow population and consumption can keep expanding without any consequences. They can’t. As population grows, the pressure on our planet is heightened. One of the many changes needed to give my generation a chance of a healthy future is for people to recognise that choosing to have fewer children helps relieve that pressure. We should and must be talking about population and family size.”

Adrian Hayes, polar explorer and adventurer, Population Matters Patron (born 1957) “I’ve seen melting ice caps with my own eyes and got very wet in the process, but it is pointless campaigning against climate change or to ‘save the Arctic’ without addressing the root cause behind it and virtually every other environmental issue we face: our unsustainable numbers on this planet. That is the real ‘inconvenient truth’.”

Norman Borlaug, scientist and “father” of the Green Revolution (1914-2009)

“The green revolution has won a temporary success in man’s war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only…Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the ‘Population Monster’.”

“There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort.”

Albert Einstein, physicist (1879-1955)

“Overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the well-being of many people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet of ours.”

Martin Luther King Jr, clergyman and activist (1929-1968)

“Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims.”

Aisha Khan, Chief Executive, Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change

“Reducing the population growth rate should be our first priority as no other programme, policy or initiative will produce results without managing the numbers.” 

Michael Palin, English actor, comedian, writer, and television presenter

“In all the global-warming figures I’ve seen since COP26, one stands out. In 1943, when I was born, the Earth’s population was 2.3 billion. Now it is nudging eight billion. That’s all you need to know about the causes of global warming. To satisfy this massive, unprecedented growth, we’re taking the place apart.”

Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General (1938-2018)

“The idea that population growth guarantees a better life — financially or otherwise — is a myth that only those who sell nappies, prams and the like have any right to believe.”

“Population stabilisation should become a priority for sustainable development, including a strong focus on the empowerment of women and girls.”

“The principle of contraction and convergence with a population base year should provide the basic framework for global greenhouse gas emission reductions.”

“…reproductive health (is) one of the key tools in the wider battle against poverty.”

Paul Ehrlich, biologist and author, Population Matters Patron (born 1932)

“Saying “it’s only consumption, it’s not the number of people that counts” is like saying “the area of a rectangle is determined only by its width, not by its length”. Certainly, consumption is a big problem. So is population size. The two multiply together to give you your impact on your life support systems.”

“A lot of people think the population problem is too many Indians or too many people in Africa, and so on. Actually, it’s too many people in the United States to start out with. You and I consume much more than the average person in Africa or the average person in India.”

“Overdrafts on aquifers are one reason some of our geologist colleagues are convinced that water shortages will bring the human population explosion to a halt. There are substitutes for oil; there is no substitute for fresh water.”

“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. Whatever problem you’re interested in, you’re not going to solve it unless you also solve the population problem.”

“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.”

“Each person we add now disproportionately impacts on the environment and life-support systems of the planet.”

Gordon Buchanan, wildlife filmmaker, Population Matters Patron (born 1972)

“I’ve travelled the globe documenting the most magnificent natural spectacles the world has to offer. But my decades-long career has shown me first-hand how the pressures on the natural world have changed. These pressures are driven by humankind’s growing population.”

Jane Fonda, actor and activist (born 1937)

“There’s lots to worry about these days but you know what worries me most: the news I read day before yesterday that by something like 2045 there will be 10 billion people on the planet — or more! I’m scared. I’ll be gone but I am scared for my grandchildren and for the wild animals and for the whole human race.”

Stephen Hawking, physicist (1942-2018)

“In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9 per cent per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder.”

“Six years ago, I was warning about pollution and overcrowding; they have gotten worse since then. The population has grown by half a billion since our last interview, with no end in sight. At this rate, it will be eleven billion by 2100. Air pollution has increased by eight per cent over the past five years.”

“Our planet and the human race face multiple challenges. These challenges are global and serious — climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.”

Emma Woods, UK Royal Society, Head of Policy, Wellbeing

“When it comes to tackling climate change and extreme weather, we ignore population at our peril.”

Professor Norman Myers, environmentalist (1934-2019)

“Many children face a prospect of a world which has been devastated of its forest cover and lost many of its species. Would it not be worthwhile to reinforce that enormous investment in the future, that grand gesture of hope in the future by chipping in just a little bit more, that one penny per day for family planning facilities? To insure that our children inherit a world worth living in. A world where population growth has been slowed to zero, with equity and fairness for all citizens on this planet, and where our environments are safeguarded and restored.”

James Lovelock, scientist and environmentalist (1919-2022)

“Those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.”

Morgan Freeman, actor (born 1937)

“We have seven billion people on this planet. It’s not that there’s not enough room on this planet for seven billion people, it’s that the energy needs for seven billion people are seven billion people’s worth of energy needs, as opposed to, say, two billion. Imagine how much pollution would be in the air and the oceans if there were only two billion people putting it in? So yeah, we’re already overpopulated.”

Sir Peter Scott, Founder, WWF (1909-1989)

“If the human population of the world continues to increase at its current rate, there will soon be no room for either wild life or wild places…But I believe that sooner or later man will learn to limit his overpopulation. Then he will be much more concerned with optimum rather than maximum, quality rather than quantity, and will recover the need within himself for contact with wilderness and wild nature.”

“You know, I have often thought that at the end of the day, we would have saved more wildlife if we had spent all WWF’s money on buying condoms.”

Sir Crispin Tickell, environmentalist, former Population Matters Patron (1930-2022)

“Population was a big issue about 30 years ago, now it’s not, but I suspect it will come back because it has to be discussed as one of the big environmental problems of our time, it’s one animal species out of control, and the awful thing is that if we don’t control it then Mother Nature will do it for us.”

Professor Aubrey Manning, zoologist (1930-2019)

“Looking across the world at the present time it is obvious to anybody at all who has even the slightest bit of biological knowledge that human numbers are already out of balance.”

Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, economist, Population Matters Patron (born 1942)

“Population growth, poverty and degradation of local resources often fuel one another.”

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama (born 1935)

“One of the great challenges today is the population explosion. Unless we are able to tackle this issue effectively we will be confronted with the problem of the natural resources being inadequate for all the human beings on this Earth.”

“The growth in population is very much bound up with poverty, and in turn poverty plunders the Earth. When human groups are dying of hunger, they eat everything: grass, insects, everything. They cut down the trees, they leave the land dry and bare. All other concerns vanish. That’s why in the next 30 years the problems we call ‘environmental’ will be the hardest that humanity has to face.”

Malcolm Potts, human reproductive scientist, Population Matters Patron (born 1935)

“Rapid population growth is at the center of many of the world’s pressing environmental, economic and security problems.”

“Without a significant slowing of population growth we face irreversible degradation of the natural environment and continued poverty for much of the world.”

Margaret Atwood, author (born 1939)

“The world is finite. For everybody in the world to have the same lifestyle that we [in the West] have now, at only six billion people, would take four additional Earths [in resources].”

Susan Hampshire, actor, Population Matters Patron (born 1937)

“It’s been so obvious to me for so long that cramming ever more people onto our little planet does it ever more damage — I can not understand why so many people find this so hard to grasp, and why so many Governments ignore it.”

Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, former UN Under-Secretary-General (born 1946)

“We cannot confront the massive challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental destruction unless we address issues of population and reproductive health.”

Al Gore, former US Vice President (born 1948)

“Population growth is straining the Earth’s resources to the breaking point, and educating girls is the single most important factor in stabilizing that. That, plus helping women gain political and economic power and safeguarding their reproductive rights.”

“One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principal ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women. You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children to have, the spacing of the children… You have to educate girls and empower women. And that’s the most powerful leveraging factor, and when that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices.”

Cameron Diaz, actor (born 1972)

“I think women are afraid to say that they don’t want children because they’re going to get shunned. But I think that’s changing too now. I have more girlfriends who don’t have kids than those that do. And, honestly? We don’t need any more kids. We have plenty of people on this planet.”

Lily Cole, model and actor (born 1987)

“It is not feasible to expect a finite planet to support infinite growth. I am most inspired by efforts to improve sex education and contraceptive availability so women have more choice. I believe women have the right to have more children if they wish but that shouldn’t stop us from trying to better understand this issue.”

Blur, band (formed 1988)

“There are too many of us. That’s plain to see.”

Sara Parkin, activist and politician, Population Matters Patron (born 1946)

“…as the soaring demand for food, water and energy is exacerbated by climate change, it is no longer legitimate to leave policies for lowering birth rates off the policy agenda.”

Rex Weyler, Greenpeace Co-Founder (born 1947)

“The wealthy nations and wealthy consumers have, of course, the greatest impact, but sheer numbers do count. There are ways that we can stabilize human population without unpleasantly imposed restrictions, namely with universal women’s rights, education and available contraception.”

Jeremy Irons, actor (born 1948)

“One always returns to the fact that there are just too many of us, the population continues to rise and it’s unsustainable.”

Dr Muhtari Aminu-Kano, Director-General, Nigerian Conservation Foundation

“We should be talking about population and we should be talking about consumption that goes with population. It is true, the average Nigerian, as a single person, does less damage than the average American, British, European or Russian, or any of the others, but then a lot of us do a lot of damage as well. I think it is not ‘either or’, it’s ‘and with’. It’s not a binary issue, really.”

Stasinos, poet (776-580 BC)

“There was a time when the countless tribes of men, though wide-dispersed, oppressed the surface of the deep-bosomed Earth, and Zeus saw it and had pity and in his wise heart resolved to relieve the all-nurturing Earth of men by causing the great struggle of the Ilian war, that the load of death might empty the world. And so the heroes were slain in Troy, and the plan of Zeus came to pass.”

Confucius, philosopher (551-479)

“Excessive (population) growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife.”

Aristotle, philosopher (384-322)

“One would have thought that it was even more necessary to limit population than property…The neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a never-failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent of both revolution and crime.”

Tertullian, writer and theologian (160-220)

“The strongest witness is the vast population of the Earth to which we are a burden and she scarcely can provide for our needs.”

Nicolas Machiavelli, political theorist and philosopher (1469-1527)

“When every province of the world so teems with inhabitants that they can neither subsist where they are nor remove themselves elsewhere… the world will purge itself in one or another of these three ways (floods, plague and famine).”

Richard Hakluyt, writer (1527-1616)

“Through our long peace and seldom sickness…we are grown more populous than ever heretofore…many thousands of idle persons are within this realm, which, having no way to be sett on work, be either mutinous and seek alteration in the state, or at least very burdensome to the commonwealth.”

Otto Diederich Lutken, clergyman and economist (1719-1790)

“Since the circumference of the globe is given and does not expand with the increased number of its inhabitants, and as travel to other planets thought to be inhabitable has not yet been invented; since the Earth’s fertility cannot be extended beyond a given point, and since human nature will presumably remain unchanged, so that a given number will hereafter require the same quantity of the fruits of the Earth for their support now, and as their rations cannot be arbitrarily reduced, it follows that the proposition “that the world’s inhabitants will be happier, the greater the number” cannot be maintained, for as soon as the number exceeds that which our planet with all its wealth of land and water can support, they must needs starve one another out, not to mention other necessarily attendant inconveniences, to wit, a lack of the other comforts of life, wool, flax, timber, fuel, and so on. But the wise Creator who commanded men in the beginning to be fruitful and multiply, did not intend, since He set limits to their habitants and sustenance, that multiplication should continue without limit.”

Hong Liangji, philosopher (1746-1809)

“Speaking of households, the number of which … there are 20 times more than a hundred years ago … Some people may propose that there would be wild land to cultivate and spare space for housing. But they can only be doubled or tripled, or at most increased five times, whereas the population at the same time could be ten to twenty times larger. Therefore housing and crop fields tend to be in scarcity, while the population tends to be excessive at all time. Given the fact that some households become monopolists, there is no wonder that so many have suffered cold and hunger and even died here and there … How does Heaven deal with the tension? Flood, drought, and pestilence are the means of Heaven to temper the problem.”

James Madison US President 1801-1809 (1751-1836)

“What becomes of the surplus of human life? It is either, first, destroyed by infanticide, as among the Chinese and Lacedaemonians; or, second, it is stifled or starved, as among other nations whose population is commensurate to its food; or, third, it is consumed by wars and endemic diseases; or fourth, it overflows, by emigration, to places where a surplus of food is attainable.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer (1803-1882)

“If government knew how, I should like to see it check — not multiply — the population.”

John Stuart Mill, philosopher (1806-1873)

“There is room in the world, no doubt, and even in old countries, for a great increase in population, supposing the arts of life to go on improving, and capital to increase. But even if innocuous, I confess I see very little reason for desiring it. The density of population necessary to enable mankind to obtain, in the greatest degree, all the advantages both of cooperation and of social intercourse, has, in all the most populous countries, been attained. A population, may be too crowded, though all be amply supplied with food and raiment. It is not good for man to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his species. A world from which solitude is extirpated, is a very poor ideal. Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character, and solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without. Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the world with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature; with every rood of land brought into cultivation, which is capable of growing food for human beings; every flowery waste or natural pasture ploughed up, all quadrupeds or birds which are not domesticated for man’s use exterminated as his rivals for food, every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grow without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved agriculture. If the Earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger but not a better or a happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it.”

John D. Rockefeller, business magnate (1839-1937)

“The population problem must be recognized by government as a principal element in long-range planning.”

Bertrand Russell, philosopher (l1872-1970)

“The one real remedy is birth control — that is getting the people of the world to limit themselves to those numbers which they can keep upon their own soil.”

Max Born, physicist (1882-1970)

“Science and technology will then follow their tendency to rapid expansion in an exponential fashion, until saturation sets in. But that does not necessarily imply an increase of wealth, still less of happiness, as long as the number of people increases at the same rate, and with it their need for food and energy. At this point, the technological problems of the atom touch social problems, such as birth control and the just distribution of goods. There will be hard fighting about these problems…”

Helen Keller, author, activist and lecturer (1880-1968)

“Once it was necessary that the people should multiply and be fruitful if the race was to survive. But now to preserve the race it is necessary that people hold back the power of propagation.”

Jawaharlal Nehru, former Indian Prime Minister (1889-1964)

“Some of these (Asian) countries, like India, far from needing a bigger population, would be better off with fewer people.”

Frederick Osborn, philanthropist (1889-1981)

“The process of industrialization should of itself reduce the birth rate if we are to judge by Western experience. But Asia cannot afford the time this transition took in the West.”

Aldous Huxley, writer (1894-1963)

“This is the force which in general terms can be called overpopulation, the mounting pressure of population pressing upon existing resources. This, of course, is an extraordinary thing; something is happening which has never happened in the world’s history before. I mean, let’s just take a simple fact that between the time of birth of Christ and the landing of the Mayflower, the population of the Earth doubled. It rose from 250 million to probably 500 million. Today, the population of the Earth is rising at such a rate that it will double in half a century.”

Pope Paul VI (1897-1978)

“There is no denying that the accelerated rate of population growth brings many added difficulties to the problems of development where the size of the population grows more rapidly than the quantity of available resources to such a degree that things seem to have reached an impasse. In such circumstances people are inclined to apply drastic remedies to reduce the birth rate. There is no doubt that public authorities can intervene in this matter, within the bounds of their competence. They can instruct citizens on this subject and adopt appropriate measures, so long as these are in conformity with the dictates of the moral law and the rightful freedom of married couples is preserved completely intact. When the inalienable right of marriage and of procreation is taken away, so is human dignity. Finally, it is for parents to take a thorough look at the matter and decide upon the number of their children. This is an obligation they take upon themselves, before their children already born, and before the community to which they belong — following the dictates of their own consciences informed by God’s law authentically interpreted, and bolstered by their trust in Him.”

Lyndon B. Johnson, former US President (1908-1973)

  “The hungry world cannot be fed until and unless growth of its resources and the growth of its population come into balance. Each man and woman and each nation must make decisions of conscience and policy in the face of this great problem.”

U Thant, former UN Secretary-General (1909-1974)

“The problem of the growing food shortage cannot be solved without in many cases a simultaneous effort to moderate population growth.”

Kenneth Boulding, economist and President Kennedy’s Environmental Advisor (1910-1993)

“Anyone who believes in indefinite growth of anything physical on a physically finite planet is either a madman or an economist.”

Arne Ness, philosopher (1912-2009)

“The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.”

Richard M. Nixon, former US President (1913-1994)

“One of the most serious challenges to human destiny in the last third of this century will be the growth of the population.”

Robert McNamara, former President of World Bank (1916-2009)

“Short of nuclear war itself, population growth is the gravest issue we face. If we do not act, the problem will be solved by famine, riots, insurrection and war.”

Christian de Duve, biologist (1917-2013)

“We’ve come to use all the resources that are available for our use on the planet…we have to do something about population control, if possible, by birth control.”

Spike Milligan, comedian (1918-2002)

“Overpopulation is a serious issue. The human race will soon have to get used to 12 in a room.”

Pete Seeger, musician (1919-2014)

“The world’s only so big. If that’s true, doesn’t it follow that the human race is far bigger than it should be? Some things are so big, like this population problem, that the best way to tackle them is in small ways. I can sing a song about overpopulation and maybe touch one or two people at a time with it.”

Digby McLaren, geologist (1919-2004)

“If an unseen intelligent being from somewhere else in our galaxy were to visit the Earth, perhaps the most incomprehensible phenomenon it could observe would be that the planet’s apparently wise and competent dominant beings are totally ignorant of the life-support system they are destined to live within. They are, furthermore, unaware that their uncontrolled reproductive capacity has grown to the extent that it is rapidly destroying this system, while they fight among themselves to preserve their freedom to do so.”

Isaac Asimov, author (1920-1992)

“…democracy can not survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn’t matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.”

“Which is the greater danger — nuclear warfare or the population explosion? The latter absolutely! To bring about nuclear war, someone has to do something; someone has to press a button. To bring about destruction by overcrowding, mass starvation, anarchy, the destruction of our most cherished values-there is no need to do anything. We need only do nothing except what comes naturally — and breed. And how easy it is to do nothing.”

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)

“The more people there are, the more food we need, the more space we occupy, the more resources and consumer goods we wish to have and the more development has to take place in order to employ the extra population. (…) Who is going to be the first to face up to the need for self-restraint in the number of children brought into the world?”

James P. Grant, former UNICEF Executive Director (1922-1995)

“Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race.”

Professor Albert Bartlett, physicist (1923-2013)

“Can you think of any problem on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted or advanced by having larger populations at the local level, the state level, the national level, or globally?”

Gore Vidal, writer (1925-2012)

“Think of the Earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every 40 years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.”

Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)

“One must remember that (St. Vincent’s) resources are finite and cannot accommodate indefinite population growth. Families must plan their families just as the Government has to plan the Nation’s development. There can be no long-term stability when the rate of population growth exceeds the rate of job creation.”

Henry Way Kendall, physicist (1926-1999)

“If we do not voluntarily bring population growth under control in the next one or two decades, then nature will do it for us in the most brutal way, whether we like it or not.”

“The destruction of our environment and resources cannot be stemmed unless the growth of the world’s population is stemmed and ultimately reduced.”

“We must…guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions.”

Gunther Grass, author (1927-2015)

“We already have all of the statistics we need for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification and so on. The future is already in place.”

Maurice Strong, former UN Under-Secretary-General (1929-2015)

“Either we reduce the world’s population voluntarily or nature will do this for us, but brutally.”

Karan Singh, politician (born 1931)

“In 1974, I led the Indian delegation to the World Population Conference in Bucharest, where my statement that ‘development is the best contraceptive’ became widely known and oft quoted. I must admit that 20 years later I am inclined to reverse this, and my position now is that ‘contraception is the best development’.”

Baroness Shreela Flather, politician (born 1934)

“With the global population reaching the milestone of seven billion, population size is starting to get the attention it deserves. One of the most effective contributions to solving these problems would be to enable women worldwide to decide their own family size and timing through funding universal access to family planning and through enabling them to exercise their social and economic rights.”

Lester R. Brown, environmentalist (born 1934)

“Our numbers expand, but Earth’s natural systems do not.”

Gloria Steinem, feminist, journalist and activist (born 1934)

“Everybody with a womb doesn’t have to have a child any more than everybody with vocal chords has to be an opera singer.”

George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury (born 1935)

“The overpopulation of this small island nation, already stricken with a mountain of debt that could blight generations, is the gravest crisis we face.”

Pope Francis (born 1936)

“Some people think that — excuse my expression here — that in order to be good Catholics we have to be like rabbits. No. Parenthood is about being responsible. This is clear.”

Marvin Gaye, musician (1939-1984)

“What about this overcrowded land? How much more abuse from man can she stand?”

Sir David King, UK Special Representative for Climate Change (born 1939)

“The prospect of nine billion people is a very big challenge. Basically today we are using the natural resources of the planet at a rate faster than they’re being replenished.”

“The massive growth of the human population through the 20th century has had more impact on biodiversity than any other single factor.”

Michael Palin, comedian (born 1943)

“The greatest politically charged challenge facing our planet? Unchecked population growth.”

Dame Mary Archer, scientist (born 1944)

“The first thing I’d do would be to try to curtail population growth because that puts a strain on so many resources as well as energy — food, land, housing.”

John Holdren, scientist (born 1944)

“If population control measures are not initiated immediately and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come.”

Dame Helen Mirren, actor (born 1945)

“…I think still it is very fine not to want children. There are far too many people in the world. It is my contribution to ecology.”

Joanna Lumley, actor (born 1946)

“I don’t think there’s any denying the fact that there are too many people in the world. I know that’s an awful thing to say, and people say you’re Hitler if you say it, but the human population is growing now so fast, and they need so much more to keep themselves alive — and indeed in developing nations, to reach a standard they would like to reach, i.e. with more cars, more TV sets. Which is completely understandable. But if a hundred people want a new car, that’s one thing — but if a million people want a new car… So I think the green issues — which is the cutting down of forests to make more room to graze more cows to make into more beef burgers — that comes from the quantity of people. And we’ve never addressed that.”

John Gray, philosopher (born 1948)

“…the root cause of mass extinction is too many people.”

“A world of fewer people would be far better placed to deal with climate change than the heavily overpopulated one we are heading for now.”

Babatunde Osotimehin, former Executive Director of UNFPA (born 1949)

“Population growth patterns are linked to nearly every challenge confronting humanity — including poverty reduction, urban pollution, energy production, food and water scarcity and health….Evidence now shows that the voluntary reduction of unwanted fertility also helps to reduce poverty rates…Efforts…to protect women’s rights to education and reproductive health…will create a world in which a stable population with a balanced approach to resource use and consumption will benefit families, communities, and nations.”

Richard Branson, entrepreneur (born 1950)

“The truth is this: the Earth cannot provide enough food and fresh water for 10 billion people, never mind homes, never mind roads, hospitals and schools.”

John Guillebaud, medical doctor and academic, Population Matters Patron (born 1950)

“Should we now explain to UK couples who plan a family that stopping at two children, or at least having one less than first intended, is the simplest and biggest contribution anyone can make to leaving a habitable planet for our grandchildren?”

Barbara Stocking, former Chief Executive of Oxfam (born 1951)

“…it is dangerously misleading to focus solely on population growth or solely on consumption, as we struggle to work out how we can sustain a population of nine billion people on the planet….”

Sir Bob Geldof, musician (born 1951)

“I think the tipping point has been reached. There can’t be more people on the Earth than we can feed.”

Fred Pearce, environmental writer (born 1951)

“Clearly, other things being equal, fewer people will do less damage to the planet.”

Baroness Valerie Amos, former UN Under-Secretary-General (born 1954)

“Population growth puts increased pressure on everything else…Girls and women must be educated. Even a few years’ basic education leads to smaller families.”

Bill Gates, business leader (born 1955)

“The problem is that the population is growing the fastest where people are less able to deal with it. So it’s in the very poorest places that you’re going to have a tripling in population by 2050. (…) And we’ve got to make sure that we help out with the tools now so that they don’t have an impossible situation later.”

Bill Nye, scientist, television host and educator (born 1955)

“In 1750, there were about a billion humans in the world. Now, there are well over seven billion people in the world. It more than doubled in my lifetime. So all these people trying to live the way we live in the developed world is filling the atmosphere with a great deal more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases than existed a couple of centuries ago. It’s the speed at which it is changing that is going to be troublesome for so many large populations of humans around the world.”

Lionel Shriver, author (born 1957)

“We need to recognise that slowing population growth is one of the most cost-effective and reliable ways of easing pressure on our environment and securing a sustainable future for us all.”

Kate Humble, television presenter (born 1958)

“There are far too many people in the world…I think one of the most environmentally friendly things you can do is not to have children.”

Jeanette Winterson, author (born 1959)

“Climate change, environmental degradation, overpopulation and war each threaten the future of our life on Earth. They are our own man-made Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

Rupert Everett, actor (born 1959)

“…we’ve got too many children on the planet, so it’s good not to have more.”

James Gasana, former Rwandan agriculture minister (born 1960)

“Rapid population growth is the major driving force behind the vicious circle of environmental scarcities and rural poverty. In Rwanda it induced the use of marginal lands on steep hillsides, shortening of fallow, deforestation, and soil degradation — and resulted in severe shortages of food.”

George Monbiot, writer (born 1963)

“(Population is) an important issue…most greens will not discuss. Is this sensitivity or is it cowardice? Perhaps a bit of both.”

“…if we accept the UN’s projection that global population will grow by roughly 50 per cent and then stop. This means it will become 50 per cent harder to stop runaway climate change, 50 per cent harder to feed the world, 50 per cent harder to prevent the overuse of resources.”

“Even if there were no environmental pressures caused by population growth, we should still support the measures required to tackle it: universal sex education, universal access to contraceptives, better schooling and opportunities for poor women. Stabilising or even reducing the human population would ameliorate almost all environmental impacts.”

Dan Brown, author (born 1964)

“Overpopulation is an issue so profound that all of us need to ask what should be done.”

Julia Bradbury, presenter (born 1970)

“I’m passionate about the world we live in and the enormous burden of the population. We can’t keep using the Earth as a bottomless pit.”

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