A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
― Garrett Hardin
Overpopulation Quotes
Our Earth can bear a limited number of people and have a finite quantity of natural resources. The problem with overpopulation is growing at an alarming rate, putting enormous pressure on the planet. Measures need to be taken to correct the current situation if we want to survive the crisis.
“Futurists don’t consider overpopulation one of the issues of the future. They consider it the issue of the future.”
― Dan Brown
“Yet food is something that is taken for granted by most world leaders despite the fact that more than half of the population of the world is hungry.”
― Norman Borlaug
“I think the tipping point has been reached. There can’t be more people on the Earth than we can feed.”
― Sir Bob Geldof
“(Population is) an important issue…most greens will not discuss. Is this sensitivity or is it cowardice? Perhaps a bit of both.”
― George Monbiot
“…if human numbers increase, the rate of infection also increases.”
― William H. McNeill,
“If we don’t halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature, brutally and without pity― and will leave a ravaged world.”
― Nobel Laureate Henry W. Kendall
“Overpopulation is a root problem of all the environmental issues. If you can control the population, you can control almost anything.”
― Rinkesh Kukreja
“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
“The biggest obstacle was mixing abortion with overpopulation. These are two things that have nothing to do with each other.”
― Jacques Yves Cousteau
“Overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet.”
― Albert Einstein
“Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed.”
― David R. Brower
“Cannibalism is a radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation.”
― Dr. Lyall Watson
“Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today”
― Jacques Yves Cousteau
“Overpopulation is a serious issue. The human race will soon have to get used to 12 in a room.”
― Spike Milligan
“I do not want to speak about overpopulation or birth control, but I think education is the way to give new impetus to the poverty question.”
― Harri Holkeri
“The human overpopulation issue is the topic I see as the most vital to solve if our children and grandchildren are to have a good quality of life.”
― Alexandra
“Excessive (population) growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife.”
― Confucius
“Ozone depletion, lack of water, and pollution are not the disease they are the symptoms. The disease is overpopulation and unless we face the world population head―on. We are doing nothing more than sticking a Band―aid on a fast―growing cancerous tumor.”
― Dan Brown
“We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.”
― Gunter Grass
“You look at the large problems that we face ― that would be overpopulation, water shortages, global warming and AIDS, I suppose ― all of those needs international cooperation to be solved.”
― Molly Ivins
Quotes On Population Growth
The ever-increasing population is burdening the earth with unfavorable conditions. This alarming rate of increase in population is leaving little to no space for each and every individual. Going ahead, it will give rise to more inequality and suffering for humans in the coming times.
“Either we reduce the world’s population voluntarily or nature will do this for us, but brutally.”
― Maurice Strong
“The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.”
― Thomas Malthus
“Some of these (Asian) countries, like India, far from needing a bigger population, would be better off with fewer people.”
― Jawaharlal Nehru
“The population problem must be recognized by the government as a principal element in long―range planning.”
― John D. Rockefeller
“The strongest witness is the vast population of the Earth to which we are a burden and she scarcely can provide for our needs.”
― Tertullian
“Anyone who believes in indefinite growth of anything physical on a physically finite planet is either a madman or an economist.”
― Kenneth Boulding
“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.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson
“Population growth, poverty and degradation of local resources often fuel one another.”
― Partha Dasgupta
“The humanity of men and women is inversely proportional to their numbers. A crowd is no more human than an avalanche or a whirlwind. A rabble of men and women stands lower in the scale of moral and intellectual being than a herd of Swine or of Jackals.”
― Aldous Huxley
“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.”
― Christian de Duve
“This growing poverty in the midst of a growing population constitutes a permanent menace to peace. And not only to peace but also to democratic institutions and personal liberty for overpopulation is not compatible with freedom.”
― Aldous Huxley
“The strongest witness is the vast population of the Earth to which we are a burden and she scarcely can provide for our needs.”
― Tertullian
“Environmental degradation, overpopulation, refugees, narcotics, terrorism, world crime movements, and organized crime are worldwide problems that don’t stop at a nation’s borders.”
― Warren Christopher
“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?”
― Prince Philip
Population Explosion Quotes
Imagine that a car has only seating arrangements for four passengers, but five passengers decide to share it. It would be uncomfortable for the passengers to accommodate all 5, but they will somehow adjust. Now imagine if another couple of people want to ride the same car. Here, they may adapt, but eventually, this explosion beyond the holding capacity of the vehicle will lead to the breakdown of the car. Similarly, the shocking rate of population explosion is becoming a severe environmental catastrophe, leading to a collapse of the planet.
“Our human population continues to expand at such a scary rate ― it’s unbelievable.”
― Bindi Irwin
“Population growth and development place additional stress on the Nation’s water infrastructure and its ability to sustain hard―won water quality gains.”
― Jerry Costello
“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.”
― Julia Bradbury
“A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive and murderous society.”
― Edward Abbey
“Population growth and development place additional stress on the Nation’s water infrastructure and its ability to sustain hard―won water quality gains.”
― Jerry Costello
“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.”
― Julia Bradbury
“A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive and murderous society.”
― Edward Abbey
“The wealthy nations and wealthy consumers have, of course, the greatest impact, but sheer numbers do count. There are ways that we can stabilize the human population without unpleasantly imposed restrictions, namely with universal women’s rights, education and available contraception.”
― Rex Weyler
“Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.”
― Stephen Hawking
“I believe that human overpopulation is the fundamental problem on Earth today and we humans have become a disease, the Human pox.”
― David Foreman
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
― Albert A. Bartlett
“Rapid population growth is at the center of many of the world’s pressing environmental, economic and security problems.”
― Malcolm Potts
“Still increasing by roughly 80 million people per year, or more than 200,000 per day, the world population must be stabilized—and, ideally, gradually reduced—within a framework that ensures social integrity.”
― World Scientist Summit
“Overpopulation is a serious issue. The human race will soon have to get used to 12 in a room.”
― Spike Milligan
“The human overpopulation issue is the topic I see as the most vital to solve if our children and grandchildren are to have a good quality of life.”
― Alexandra Paul
“Overpopulation is by far the worst kind of pollution.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“We are in a bottleneck of overpopulation and wasteful consumption that could push half of Earth’s species to extinction in this century.”
― E.O. Wilson
Population Control Quotes
The population on earth only 200 years ago was 1 billion. The shocking addition of 6 billion people happened only in the last two centuries. This unnerving addition impacted the environmental balance giving rise to greenhouse gas emission, soil erosion, and extinction of many animal species. To bring into perspective this rattling concern, we have rounded a few quotes for you.
“To save the world, to protect the tomorrow, we have to control the population today.”
― Unknown
“The key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better quality of life — for 8 billion or more people — without wrecking the environment entirely in the attempt.”
― Edward O. Wilson
“We must…guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions.”
― Henry Way Kendall
“I support Population Matters because they’re the only people pointing out the obvious link between ever more people and ever less wildlife.”
― Chris Packham
“All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people and harder — and ultimately impossible — to solve with ever more people.”
― Sir David Attenborough
“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.”
― Helen Keller
“Clearly, other things being equal, fewer people will do less damage to the planet.”
― Fred Pearce
“Our object must be to bring our territory into harmony with the numbers of our population.”
― Adolf Hitler
“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
“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.”
― Kate Humble
“…the galloping increase of human numbers practically guarantees that existing margins between food supplies and human hunger will swiftly disappear, leaving less and less in reserve for times of unusual crisis.”
― William H. McNeill
“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.”
― Arne Ness
“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.”
― Henry Way Kendall
Population Reduction Quotes
With population growth, strains on utilizing the already scarce natural resource are at their peak already. More people mean more mouths to feed. This requires agricultural and industrial production to scale high and cultivable lands are made available by clearing more and more forest. As earth’s resources and land are finite, we may end up destroying our only habitat if this continues. Population control and reduction are the need of the hour. The following quotes will allow you to rethink your next move.
“When the family is small, whatever little they have they are able to share. There is peace.”
― Philip Njuguna
“By improving health, empowering women, population growth comes down.”
― Bill Gates
“Population growth puts increased pressure on everything else…Girls and women must be educated. Even a few years’ basic education leads to smaller families.”
― Baroness Valerie Amos
“When we can treat all existing persons as human, it will be time enough to think about having more.”
― Athelstan Spilhaus
“If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.”
― B.F. Skinne
“If the human population of the world continues to increase at its current rate, there will soon be no room for either wildlife 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.”
― Sir Peter Scott
“The destruction of our environment and resources cannot be stemmed unless the growth of the world’s population is stemmed and ultimately reduced.”
― Henry Way Kendall
“The point of population stabilization is to reduce or minimize misery.”
― Roger Bengston
“We must stabilize the population. This will be possible only if all nations recognize that it requires improved social and economic conditions, and the adoption of effective, voluntary family planning.”
― Lester Milbrath
“In the last 200 years, the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9 percent 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
Funny Population Quotes
The population explosion is a big problem, but it may be our greatest asset if it happens at the right time and is appropriately used. Slowly people are becoming aware of this issue and are working to reduce the number of children to arrest this concern. The world is currently fighting. These are some interesting and funny quotes that can make you aware of one of the most critical problems in the world in a lighter way.
“Our numbers expand, but Earth’s natural systems do not.”
― Lester R. Brown
“Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage.”
― Jacques Yves Cousteau
“Population growth is not respecting water-management, district boundaries.”
― Colleen Castille
“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.”
― Bertrand Russell
“One always returns to the fact that there are just too many of us, the population continues to rise and it’s unsustainable.”
― Jeremy Irons
“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].”
― Margaret Atwood
“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.”
― Cameron Diaz
“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 set on work, be either mutinous and seek alteration in the state, or at least very burdensome to the commonwealth.”
― Richard Hakluyt
“There are too many of us. That’s plain to see.”
― Blur
“Making love instead of war is likely to lead to an even bigger population, which is likely to lead to wars.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“We have a finite environment—the planet. Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman or an economist.”
― Sir David Attenborough
“The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical concept.”
― E.O. Wilson
“We urgently need to either start increasing the size of our planet or stop increasing the size of our population.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“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 dies.”
― Gore Vidal
“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 any resources, we can change our technology and we can reduce the growth of our population.”
― Sir David Attenborough
“If we have the problem of overpopulation and unemployment at the same time, then things don’t add up.”
― Unknown
World Population Quotes
World Population Day was established by the UNDP Governing Council in 1989 to focus on the urgency and crucial nature of population issues. Population growth is worrying, and it is the biggest problem facing people on the planet, as well as the entire environment. This is why the celebration of World Population Day has begun as a global movement to raise people’s awareness, mainly towards reproductive health. Gender equality is the foundation for achieving Sustainable Development Goals.
“One of the most serious challenges to human destiny in the last third of this century will be the growth of the population.”
― Richard M. Nixon
“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
“The principle of contraction and convergence with a population base year should provide the basic framework for global greenhouse gas emission reductions.”
― Kofi Annan
“Population stabilization should become a priority for sustainable development, including a strong focus on the empowerment of women and girls.”
― Kofi Annan
“The overpopulation of this small island nation, already stricken with a mountain of debt that could blight generations, is the gravest crisis we face.”
― George Carey
“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.”
― Al Gore
“When it comes to tackling climate change and extreme weather, we ignore the population at our peril.”
― Emma Woods
“The problem of the growing food shortage cannot be solved without in many cases a simultaneous effort to moderate population growth.”
― U. Thant
“Must we wait for the selection to solve the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion of resources? Pollution of the environment and a nuclear holocaust, or can we take explicit steps to make our future more secure? In the latter case, must we not transcend selection?”
― Burrhus Frederic Skinner
“Reducing the population growth rate should be our first priority as no other program, policy or initiative will produce results without managing the numbers.”
― Aisha Khan
“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
“We cannot confront the massive challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental destruction unless we address issues of population and reproductive health.”
― Thoraya Ahmed Obaid
“One always returns to the fact that there are just too many of us, the population continues to rise and it’s unsustainable.”
― Jeremy Irons
Quotes on Population
What is the best definition of the population?
A population is a specific group of people, including a nation or a group with common characteristics. In statistics, a population is a group of individuals from which statistical samples are drawn for research.
What are the 10 largest countries in the world by population?
The most populous countries of the world according to United Nations Population Division estimates in 2021 are:
- China ― 1,439,323,776
- India ― 1,380,004,385
- United States ― 331,002,651
- Indonesia ― 273,523,615
- Pakistan – 220,892,340
- Brazil ― 212,559,417
- Nigeria ― 206,139,589
- Bangladesh ― 164,689,383
- Russia ― 145,934,462
- Mexico ― 128,932,753
What are 3 characteristics of population?
Three main characteristics of the population are:
- Size and density of population
- Geographical distribution
- Age composition
What are the four factors that affect population size?
Critical factors affecting the size of the population of a nation can be classified into the following:
- Fertility Rate
- Mortality Rate
- Migration
- Emigration
Why is the size of population important?
The size of a population is crucial as larger communities are more stable than smaller ones because they may have more significant genetic variability and therefore have substantial potential to adapt to environmental changes through natural selection.
The rapidly growing population has put tremendous pressure on the environment. With the continuous pollution and depletion of resources in developed countries, the economic competing pressure of developing countries is increasing, and their industrial achievements are also getting eroded. This insane growth threatens the future of sustainable life on earth.
One of the most severe environmental consequences of population growth is global warming. Some scientists worry that global warming will cause sea levels to rise exponentially. The extreme weather conditions are already engulfing the forest cover at an alarming rate to feed the growing population. People continue to place high demands on our planet’s natural resources. Many non―renewable resources are being exhausted due to their rampant usage: fuel and energy are the most noteworthy of all. A big chunk of the world is also facing food and water shortages. Environmental pollution places higher demands on our already limited resources. The environment on the earth is affected by the growth of the world’s population. The depletion of resources and biodiversity, the generation of waste, and the destruction of natural habitats are serious problems that must be resolved so that life on the planet can sustain for years to come.
