Thomas Robert Malthus

1766–1834 · British political economist

Topics: learning, software engineering, simplicity

• Persons almost entirely unacquainted with the powers of a machine, cannot be expected to guess at its effects.

  — Thomas Robert Malthus

• The first business of philosophy is to account for things as they are; and till our theories will do this, they ought not to be the ground of any practical conclusion.

  — Thomas Robert Malthus

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

  — Thomas Robert Malthus

• The moment we leave past experience as the foundation of our conjectures concerning the future; and still more, if our conjectures absolutely contradict past experience, we are thrown upon a wide field of uncertainty, and any one supposition is then just as good as another.

  — Thomas Robert Malthus