We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit.
A book is like a single tree in a forest, in that it exists in conjunction with and because of a great many others around it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A book's value and existence are intertwined with other books and ideas, much like a tree in a forest is part of a larger ecosystem.
David Suzuki's quote illustrates the interconnectedness of knowledge and ideas, suggesting that a single book gains significance through its relationship with other works. Just as a tree contributes to and thrives within a forest, a book exists in a broader literary and intellectual environment, relying on its context and the multitude of other literature that enriches its meaning and understanding.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of literacy, one might quote Suzuki to emphasize how reading connects us to a larger world of knowledge.
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.
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
Children must receive music instruction as naturally as food, with as much pleasure as they derive from a ball game, and this must happen from the beginning of their lives.
Education used to be a slice of life, something you did as a child through college, and then spent the rest of your life working, and then death. Everything is about to change. I believe education will become something that fits seamlessly into life, and we will take big clunky things like degrees and college and fit them into a weekend.
Now of the difficulties bound up with the public in which we doctors work, I hesitate to speak in a mixed audience. Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education.
What enriches language is its being handled and exploited by beautiful minds-not so much by making innovations as by expanding it through more vigorous and varied applications, by extending it and deploying it. It is not words that they contribute: what they do is enrich their words, deepen their meanings and tie down their usage; they teach it unaccustomed rhythms, prudently though and with ingenuity.
Youth is a time when we find the books we give up but do not get over.
There's no better way to inform and expand you mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature.