Skip to content

It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the long run by an appeal to conscience.

— Garrett Hardin The Immigration Dilemma (1995)

Another quote →

Topics

Character

More quotes by Garrett Hardin

Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.

Filters Against Folly (1985)

A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.

Tragedy of the Commons (1968)

The class of "No technical solution problems" has members. My thesis is that the "population problem," as conventionally conceived, is a member of this class.

Tragedy of the Commons (1968)

People are the quintessential element in all technology... Once we recognize the inescapable human nexus of all technology our attitude toward the reliability problem is fundamentally changed.

[I]f a pasture is run as a commons open to all, the right of each to use it is not matched by an operational responsibility to take care of it.

The Immigration Dilemma (1995)

All Garrett Hardin quotes →

You may also like

Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman (1903)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.

Horace Mann Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Garrett Hardin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.