To minds of a certain cast there is nothing so captivating as simplification and generalization. - Thomas Robert Malthus

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

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.

With regard to the duration of human life, there does not appear to have existed from the earliest ages of the world to the present moment the smallest permanent symptom or indication of increasing prolongation.