I happen to have a very bad fit of the tooth-ache at the time I am writing this. - Thomas Robert Malthus

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.

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

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.