We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit.
David SuzukiRead
In the environmental movement, every time you lose a battle it's for good, but our victories always seem to be temporary and we keep fighting them over and over again.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Environmental battles may feel like losses, but each setback contributes to a greater cause.
David Suzuki highlights the ongoing struggle within the environmental movement, where each defeat, though discouraging, serves a larger purpose. He suggests that while victories are often fleeting, the process of continual fighting is essential to making long-term progress in protecting the environment.
Themes
EnvironmentBattleVictoryNatureStruggleMovement
In practice
Example use cases
During a presentation on climate change, one could quote Suzuki to emphasize resilience in environmental advocacy.
More from David Suzuki
All quotes βAs parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts we need to start getting out into nature with the young people in our lives. Families play a key role in getting kids outside.
David SuzukiRead
One of the joys of being a grandparent is getting to see the world again through the eyes of a child.
David SuzukiRead
The medical literature tells us that the most effective ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and many more problems are through healthy diet and exercise. Our bodies have evolved to move, yet we now use the energy in oil instead of muscles to do our work.
David SuzukiRead
Do you know how much land is under ice, rock and snow? Do you know why 90 percent of us live within 100 kilometres of the U.S. border? We have this idea we're a vast country. But the reality is that a lot of it, a huge amount, is uninhabitable.
David SuzukiRead
We no longer see the world as a single entity. We've moved to cities and we think the economy is what gives us our life, that if the economy is strong we can afford garbage collection and sewage disposal and fresh food and water and electricity. We go through life thinking that money is the key to having whatever we want, without regard to what it does to the rest of the world.
David SuzukiRead
Similar quotes
The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.
Georg C. LichtenbergRead
I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us
Alice HoffmanRead
[...] endless action and reaction. Those beautifully rounded pebbles which you gather on the sand and which you hold in your hand and marvel at their exceeding smoothness, were chiseled into their varies and graceful forms by the ceaseless action of countless waves. Nature is herself a great worker and never tolerates, without certain rebuke, any contradiction to her wise example. Inaction is followed by stagnation. Stagnation is followed by pestilence and pestilence is followed by death.
Frederick DouglassRead
Solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society can ill do without.
John Stuart MillRead
The notions that nature exists to serve us; that its value consists of the instrumental benefits we can extract; that this value can be measured in cash terms; and that what can't be measured does not matter, have proved lethal to the rest of life on Earth.
George MonbiotRead
Almost any garden, if you see it at just the right moment, can be confused with paradise.
Henry MitchellRead