Our planet Earth has a limited carrying capacity. The resources available on our planet are for a finite number of people only. An increase in the number of population can lead to fewer resources for the globe’s population. Overpopulation, therefore, is an undesirable condition where the number of the existing human population exceeds the actual carrying capacity of Earth.
Imagine a car that has a limited seating capacity of 5 people. It can accommodate one more person which will create an undesirable situation for other passengers sitting in the car as each once of them will have to leave a small space for another person. Now, what if a couple of more people decide to board the same car. Even if they too accommodate themselves in the same car, the car will eventually break down after some time as it is carrying people beyond its carrying capacity.
Now, replace the car with our planet Earth and passengers in the car with the enormous number of people on this planet and think how far this planet would sustain if we keep on adding more and more people on this planet which already has a fewer number of resources. Overpopulation is a serious environmental concern. Let’s take a look at 125 great quotes about overpopulation and population growth.
125 Great Quotes About Overpopulation and Population Growth
1. 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
2. Overpopulation is a root problem of all the environmental issues. If you can control the population, you can control almost anything.
~ Rinkesh Kukreja, Founder – Conserve Energy Future
3. The biggest obstacle was mixing abortion with overpopulation. These are two things that have nothing to do with each other.
~ Jacques Yves Cousteau
4. 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, Greenpeace Co-Founder (born 1947)
5. Excessive (population) growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife.
~ Confucius, philosopher (551-479)
6. 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, writer and theologian (160-220)
7. 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.
~ 2019 World Scientists’ Warning of A Climate Emergency, signed by over 13,000 scientists from 156 countries
8. 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
9. 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, scientist, Pulitzer prize-winning author and father of biodiversity
10. 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, former US President (1908-1973)
11. The problem of the growing food shortage cannot be solved without in many cases a simultaneous effort to moderate population growth.
~ U Thant, former UN Secretary-General (1909-1974)
12. Anyone who believes in indefinite growth of anything physical on a physically finite planet is either a madman or an economist.
~ Kenneth Boulding, economist and President Kennedy’s Environmental Advisor (1910-1993)
13. 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. Skinner, psychologist and author (Introduction to Walden Two, 1976 edition)
14. 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, professor emeritus and author, Learning to Think Environmentally
15. The point of population stabilization is to reduce or minimize misery.
~ Roger Bengston, founding board member, World Population Balance
16. 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, world-renowned deaf and blind author and lecturer
17. The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
~ Albert A. Bartlett, Professor of Physics, University of Colorado; Former World Population Balance Advisor
18. 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
19. When we can treat all existing persons as human, it will be time enough to think about having more.
~ Athelstan Spilhaus
20. 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
21. 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
22. 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
23. 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
24. I believe that human overpopulation is the fundamental problem on Earth today and we humans have become a disease, the Human pox.
~ David Foreman
25. Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed.
~ David R. Brower
26. Cannibalism is a radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation.
~ Dr. Lyall Watson
27. We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.
~ Gunter Grass
28. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today
~ Jacques Yves Cousteau
29. I believe that human overpopulation is the fundamental problem on Earth Today and, We humans have become a disease, the Humanpox
~ David Foreman
30. Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
~ Isaac Asimov
31. Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.
~ Kenneth E. Boulding
32. Cannibalism is a radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation.
~ Prince Philip
33. 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
34. Overpopulation in the United States will become THE single greatest issue facing Americans in the 21st century. We either solve it proactively or nature will solve it brutally for us via water shortages, energy crisis, air pollution, gridlock, species extinction and worse.
~ Frosty Wooldridge
35. You look at the large problems that we face – that would be overpopulation, water shortages, global warming and AIDS, I suppose – all of that needs international cooperation to be solved.
~ Molly Ivins
36. We must alert and organize the world’s people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises – exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.
~ Jacques Yves Cousteau
37. We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.
~ Gunter Grass
38. 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, biologist (1917-2013)
39. 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, Duke of Edinburgh (born 1921)
40. Overpopulation is a serious issue. The human race will soon have to get used to 12 in a room.
~ Spike Milligan, comedian (1918-2002)
41. 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.
~ Gore Vidal, writer (1925-2012)
42. There is a severe horse overpopulation crisis caused by overbreeding in the racing industry. It’s time for that industry to accept responsibility for its castoffs and take dramatic action to protect a species that has so loyally served humankind.
~ Jane Velez-Mitchell
43. 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
44. Population growth, poverty and degradation of local resources often fuel one another.
~ Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, economist, Population Matters Patron (born 1942)
45. Rapid population growth is at the center of many of the world’s pressing environmental, economic and security problems.
~ Malcolm Potts, human reproductive scientist, Population Matters Patron (born 1935)
46. 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
47. We have so many issues with overpopulation and urbanization and site looting. And this isn’t just Egypt. This is everywhere in the world, even in America. So we only have a limited amount of time left before many archaeological sites all over the world are destroyed.
~ Sarah Parcak
48. 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
49. The biggest obstacle was mixing abortion with overpopulation. These are two things that have nothing to do with each other.
~ Jacques Yves Cousteau
50. 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
51. 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.
~ Sir David Attenborough, naturalist and broadcaster, Population Matters Patron (born 1926)
52. 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, naturalist and broadcaster, Population Matters Patron (born 1926)
53. 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, naturalist and broadcaster, Population Matters Patron (born 1926)
54. Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it’s time we controlled the population to allow the survival of the environment.
~ Sir David Attenborough, naturalist and broadcaster, Population Matters Patron (born 1926)
55. 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 many resources, we can change our technology and we can reduce the growth of our population.
~ Sir David Attenborough, naturalist and broadcaster, Population Matters Patron (born 1926)
56. 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, physicist (born 1942)
57. 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, Chief Executive, Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change
58. We urgently need to either start increasing the size of our planet or stop increasing the size of our population.
~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana
59. If we have the problem of overpopulation and unemployment at the same time, then things don’t add up.
~ Rajesh`, Random Cosmos
60. Overpopulation is by far the worst kind of pollution.
~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana
61. The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical concept.
~ E.O. Wilson, entomologist and conservationist (born 1929)
62. 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, entomologist and conservationist (born 1929)
63. 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, naturalist and broadcaster, Population Matters Patron (born 1961)
64. The idea that population growth guarantees a better life — financially or otherwise — is a myth that only those who sell nappies, prams and the like have any right to believe.
~ Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General (born 1938)
65. Either we reduce the world’s population voluntarily or nature will do this for us, but brutally.
~ Maurice Strong, former UN Under-Secretary-General (born 1929)
66. In 1974, I led the Indian delegation to the World Population Conference in Bucharest, where my statement that ‘development is the best contraceptive’ became widely known and oft-quoted. I must admit that 20 years later I am inclined to reverse this, and my position now is that ‘contraception is the best development’.
~ Karan Singh, politician (born 1931)
67. 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, former Archbishop of Canterbury (born 1935)
68. Population stabilization should become a priority for sustainable development, including a strong focus on the empowerment of women and girls.
~ Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General (born 1938)
69. The principle of contraction and convergence with a population base year should provide the basic framework for global greenhouse gas emission reductions.
~ Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General (born 1938)
70. When it comes to tackling climate change and extreme weather, we ignore the population at our peril.
~ Emma Woods, UK Royal Society, Head of Policy, Wellbeing
71. Our object must be to bring our territory into harmony with the numbers of our population.
~ Adolf Hitler
72. A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive and murderous society.
~ Edward Abbey
73. …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, Can Life Prevail? – A Radical Approach To The Environmental Crisis
74. …if human numbers increase, the rate of infection also increases.
~ William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples
75. 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.
~ David Attenborough
76. Making love instead of war is likely to lead to an even bigger population, which is likely to lead to wars.
~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana
77. 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, television presenter (born 1958)
78. Rapid population growth is the major driving force behind the vicious circle of environmental scarcities and rural poverty. In Rwanda it induced the use of marginal lands on steep hillsides, shortening of fallow, deforestation, and soil degradation — and resulted in severe shortages of food.
~ James Gasana, former Rwandan agriculture minister (born 1960)
79. 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, presenter (born 1970)
80. (Population is) an important issue…most greens will not discuss. Is this sensitivity or is it cowardice? Perhaps a bit of both.
~ George Monbiot, writer (born 1963)
81. 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, Founder, WWF (1909-1989)
82. …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, Plagues and Peoples
83. 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, scientist and environmentalist (born 1919)
84. 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, former UN Under-Secretary-General (born 1946)
85. 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, author (born 1939)
86. There are too many of us. That’s plain to see.
~ Blur, band (formed 1988)
87. 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, actor (born 1972)
88. 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, former US Vice President (born 1948)
89. We should be talking about population and we should be talking about consumption that goes with the population. It is true, the average Nigerian, as a single person, does less damage than the average American, British, European or Russian, or any of the others, but then a lot of us do a lot of damage as well. I think it is not ‘either-or’, it’s ‘and with’. It’s not a binary issue, really.
~ Dr Muhtari Aminu-Kano, Director-General, Nigerian Conservation Foundation
90. 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 sett on work, be either mutinous and seek alteration in the state, or at least very burdensome to the commonwealth.
~ Richard Hakluyt, writer (1527-1616)
91. 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, actor (born 1948)
92. It is not feasible to expect a finite planet to support infinite growth. I am most inspired by efforts to improve sex education and contraceptive availability so women have more choice. I believe women have the right to have more children if they wish but that shouldn’t stop us from trying to better understand this issue.
~ Lily Cole, model and actor (born 1987)
93. The population problem must be recognized by the government as a principal element in long-range planning.
~ John D. Rockefeller, a business magnate (1839-1937)
94. 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, philosopher (l1872-1970)
95. Some of these (Asian) countries, like India, far from needing a bigger population, would be better off with fewer people.
~ Jawaharlal Nehru, former Indian Prime Minister (1889-1964)
96. This is the force which in general terms can be called overpopulation, the mounting pressure of population pressing upon existing resources. This, of course, is an extraordinary thing; something is happening which has never happened in the world’s history before. I mean, let’s just take a simple fact that between the time of birth of Christ and the landing of the Mayflower, the population of the Earth doubled. It rose from 250 million to probably 500 million. Today, the population of the Earth is rising at such a rate that it will double in half a century.
~ Aldous Huxley, writer (1894-1963)
97. 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, philosopher (1912-2009)
98. 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, former US President (1913-1994)
99. 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, physicist (1926-1999)
100. 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, physicist (1926-1999)
101. We must…guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions.
~ Henry Way Kendall, physicist (1926-1999)
102. We already have all of the statistics we need for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification and so on. The future is already in place.
~ Gunther Grass, author (1927-2015)
103. Our numbers expand, but Earth’s natural systems do not.
~ Lester R. Brown, environmentalist (born 1934)
104. I think the tipping point has been reached. There can’t be more people on the Earth than we can feed.
~ Sir Bob Geldof, musician (born 1951)
105. Clearly, other things being equal, fewer people will do less damage to the planet.
~ Fred Pearce, environmental writer (born 1951)
106. 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, former UN Under-Secretary-General (born 1954)
107. The problem is that the population is growing the fastest where people are less able to deal with it. So it’s in the very poorest places that you’re going to have a tripling in population by 2050. (…) And we’ve got to make sure that we help out with the tools now so that they don’t have an impossible situation later.
~ Bill Gates, business leader (born 1955)
108. We need to recognize that slowing population growth is one of the most cost-effective and reliable ways of easing pressure on our environment and securing a sustainable future for us all.
~ Lionel Shriver, author, Population Matters Patron (born 1957)
109. Climate change, environmental degradation, overpopulation and war each threaten the future of our life on Earth. They are our own man-made Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
~ Jeanette Winterson, author (born 1959)
110. …if we accept the UN’s projection that global population will grow by roughly 50 percent and then stop. This means it will become 50 percent harder to stop runaway climate change, 50 percent harder to feed the world, 50 percent harder to prevent the overuse of resources.
~ George Monbiot, writer (born 1963)
111. By improving health, empowering women, population growth comes down.
~ Bill Gates
112. Futurists don’t consider overpopulation one of the issues of the future. They consider it the issue of the future.
~ Dan Brown
113. When the family is small, whatever little they have they are able to share. There is peace.”
~ Philip Njuguna, pastor, Nairobi, Kenya
114. Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable future. If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth.”
~ World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity
115. Almost half of the population of the world lives in rural regions and mostly in a state of poverty. Such inequalities in human development have been one of the primary reasons for unrest and, in some parts of the world, even violence.
~ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
116. To save the world, to protect the tomorrow, we have to control the population today.
~ Unknown
117. Rapid population growth and technological innovation, combined with our lack of understanding about how the natural systems of which we are a part work, have created a mess.
~ David Suzuki
118. Every state has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights, as well as from the consequences of humanitarian crises, whether natural or man-made.
~ Pope Benedict XVI
119. 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
120. Our human population continues to expand at such a scary rate – it’s unbelievable.
~ Bindi Irwin
121. 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
122. The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.
~ Thomas Malthus
123. Population growth is not respecting water-management district boundaries.
~ Colleen Castille
124. Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage.
~ Jacques Yves Cousteau
125. 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
