This page features some useful quotes on Population Concerns.
David Attenborough - (b.1926) Naturalist, broadcaster, former controller of BBC 2 and patron of Population Matters.
“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 and it is the poor people of the world who will suffer most.”
“All environmental problems become harder — and ultimately impossible — to solve with ever more people.”
“Anyone who thinks you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or an economist”.
“Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it’s time we [should] control the population to allow the survival of the environment.”
UNICEF Report - 1992
“Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race”
Leilani Munter - (b. 1984) Woman racing car driver and patron of Population Matters
“The ultimate intelligence of our species will be determined by whether we face our population issue and get it under control, or continue to sweep it under the rug because it’s an uncomfortable conversation. The future of life on Earth depends on us doing the former.”
Roger Martin - (b.1941) Former diplomat and retired President of Population Matters.
“It is not much use reducing our carbon footprints if we keep on increasing the number of feet.”
Thoraya Obaid - (b. 1941) UN Under-Secretary General, 2000-2010; the first Muslim Saudi-Arabian to head a UN agency.
"We cannot confront the massive challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental destruction unless we address issues of population and reproductive health."
Jane Goodall - (b. 1934) Founder, Jane Goodall Institute and United Nations Messenger of Peace. Patron of Population Matters.
“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.”
Edward O. Wilson - Distinguished Biologist 1929-2021
"The raging monster on the face of the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct."
Martin Luther King - Civil Rights Activist USA 1929-1968
“There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. 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.”
Henry W. Kendall - Particle physicist and Nobel Laureate 1926-1999
“If we don’t halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature, brutally and without pity - and we will leave a ravaged world.”
Gore Vidal - Writer and intellectual 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.”
Spike Milligan - Comedian 1918-2002
“Overpopulation is a serious issue. The human race will soon have to get used to 12 in a room.”
Jawaharial Nehru - 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.”
Bertrand Russell - Philosopher 1872-1970
“I do not pretend that birth control is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing. There are others, which, one must suppose, opponents of birth control would prefer.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Writer 1803-1882
“If government knew how, I should like to see it check - not multiply - the population.”
Aristotle - Philosopher 384-322 BC.
“One would have thought that 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.”