Man cannot live in the midst of plenty.
Thomas Robert Malthus
Category: Quote of the Day
Aphorisms, proverbs, wise sayings and other witty, pithy stuff
31DEC2023 – Quote of the Day
If two districts, one of which possessed a rich copper mine, and the other a rich tin mine, had always been separated by an impassable river or mountain, there can be no doubt that an opening of a communication, a greater demand would take place, and a greater price be given for both the tin and the copper; and this greater price of both metals, though it might be only temporary, would alone go a great way towards furnishing the additional capital wanted to supply the additional demand; and the capitals of both districts, and the products of both mines, would be increased both in quantity and value to a degree which could not have taken place without the this new distribution of the produce, or some equivalent to it.
Thomas Robert Malthus
30DEC2023 – Quote of the Day
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.
Thomas Robert Malthus
29DEC2023 – Quote of the Day
The labouring poor, to use a vulgar expression, seem always to live from hand to mouth. Their present wants employ their whole whole attention, and they seldom think of the future. Even when they have an opportunity of saving they seldom exercise it, but all that is beyond their present neccessities goes, generally speaking, to the ale house.
Thomas Robert Malthus
28DEC2023 – Quote of the Day
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio, Subsistence, increases only in an arithmetical ratio.
Thomas Robert Malthus
27DEC2023 – Quote of the Day
The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May.
Thomas Malory
26DEC2023 – Quote of the Day
Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise the King born of all England.
Thomas Malory
25DEC2023 – Quote of the Day
O grant me, Heaven, a middle state,
Neither too humble nor too great;
More than enough, for nature’s ends,
With something left to treat my friends.
David Mallet
24DEC2023 – Quote of the Day
It is from the shadow of a cloister that there emerges one of mankind’s greatest very greatest scourges. Luther appears; Calvin follows him. The Peasants’ Revolt; the Thirty Years’ War; the civil war in France; the massacre of the Low Countries; the massacre of Ireland; the massacre of the Cévennes; St Bartholomew’s Day; the murders of Henry II, Henry IV, Mary Stuart, and Charles I; and finally, in our day, from the same source, the French Revolution.
Joseph de Maistre
23DEC2023 – Quote of the Day
There is perhaps nothing more interesting than to listen to a superior man talk of what he does not know. He advances slowly, and scarcely puts his foot down without knowing if the ground is solid; he looks for plausible analogies; he tries to attach his ideas to higher and incontestable principles; he always has the tone of looking, never that of teaching; and it often happens that, even if he is mistaken, he leaves a great enough idea of his mental honesty.
Joseph de Maistre