Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
Wangari MaathaiRead
Anybody can dig a hole and plant a tree. But make sure it survives. You have to nurture it, you have to water it, you have to keep at it until it becomes rooted so it can take care or itself. There are so many enemies of trees.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Planting a tree is easy, but nurturing it requires dedication and ongoing care.
This quote by Wangari Maathai highlights the importance of nurturing and caring for what we bring into existence, particularly in relation to nature. While the act of planting a tree is simple, ensuring its survival against various challenges demands consistent effort, patience, and attention, serving as a metaphor for any endeavor that requires sustained commitment and care to thrive.
Themes
NurtureTreeCareGrowthDedication
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, you might say, 'As Wangari Maathai reminds us, planting a tree is only the beginning; we must nurture it to ensure its survival.'
More from Wangari Maathai
All quotes →It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.
Wangari MaathaiRead
I know there is pain when sawmills close and people lose jobs, but we have to make a choice. We need water and we need these forests.
Wangari MaathaiRead
We’re constantly being bombarded by problems that we face and sometimes we can get completely overwhelmed. [But] we should always feel like a hummingbird. I may feel insignificant, but I don’t want to be like the other animals watching the planet go down the drain. I’ll be a hummingbird, I’ll do the best I can.
Wangari MaathaiRead
As long as there is no trust and confidence that there will be justice and fairness in resource distribution, political positioning will remain more important than service
Wangari MaathaiRead
It gradually became clear that the Green Belt Movement's work with communities to repair the degraded environment could not be done effectively without participants embracing a set of core spiritual values.
Wangari MaathaiRead
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