Doesn't a tree get its strenght from the earth?

"...It is from those hard situations that men get strenght and wisdom... If we can realize that then we learn to see everything with a different light...
Think about a tree, tall and strong, it grows towards the sun and the blue sky... but the strenght that let it live comes from the roots, tha are in the cold and dark earth, where vermin crawls...
Does the tree hate the earth?
No, because it knows its strenght comes from there!"
-Translated from "The path to happiness", Bernard Benson