We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit.
I've always been more interested in organisms that can move on their own than in stationary plants. But when I canoe or hike along the edge of lakes or oceans and see trees that seem to be growing out of rock faces, I am blown away. How do they do it?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a fascination with life forms that demonstrate resilience and adaptability in harsh conditions.
David Suzuki expresses a deep appreciation for living organisms, particularly those that can thrive in challenging environments. While he is captivated by mobile life forms, he finds an extraordinary beauty in trees growing from rocky surfaces, which showcases nature's ability to endure and flourish despite adversity. This perspective highlights the wonder of life's diversity and the remarkable strategies different organisms employ to survive.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a nature conservation speech to emphasize the resilience of lifeforms in tough environments.
More from David Suzuki
All quotes →As 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.
One of the joys of being a grandparent is getting to see the world again through the eyes of a child.
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.
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.
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.
Similar quotes
I go five steps in the garden, and I immediately lose track of time... it is a kind of joy in being alive in being in the world. I always found that in the garden. That is what it means to me.
One cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.
The worst of sleeping out of doors is that you wake up so dreadfully early. And when you wake up you have to get up because the ground is so hard you are uncomfortable. And it makes matters worse if there is nothing but apples for breakfast and you have had nothing but apples for supper the night before.
I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature.
The breezes taste Of apple peel. The air is full Of smells to feel- Ripe fruit, old footballs, Burning brush, New books, erasers, Chalk, and such. The bee, his hive, Well-honeyed hum, And Mother cuts Chrysanthemums. Like plates washed clean With suds, the days Are polished with A morning haze.
What more delightful avocation than to take a piece of land and by cautious experimentation to prove how it works. What more substantial service to conservation than to practice it on one's own land?