Yvon Chouinard Quotes - Page 4

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• Personally, I would rather climb in the high mountains. I have always abhorred the tremendous heat, the dirt-filled cracks, the ant-covered foul-smelling trees and bushes which cover the cliffs, the filth and noise of Camp 4 (the climbers' campground), and worst of all, the multitudes of tourists which abound during the weekends and summer months.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Summer, Weekend, Climbing

  7 Copy quote

• Just why is Yosemite climbing so different ? Why does it have techniques, ethics and equipment all of its own ? The basic reason lies in the rock itself. Nowhere else in the world is the rock so exfoliated, so glacier-polished and so devoid of handholds. All of the climbing lines follow vertical crack systems. Every piton crack, every handhold is a vertical one. Special techniques and equipment have evolved through absolute necessity.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Lying, Rocks, Climbing

  7 Copy quote

• While our managers debated what steps to take to address the sales and cash-flow crisis, I began to lead week-long employee seminars in what we called Philosophies. We'd take a busload at a time to places like Yosemite or the Marin Headlands above San Francisco, camp out, and gather under the trees to talk. The goal was to teach every employee in the company our business and environmental ethics and values.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Business, Philosophy, Cash Flow

  4 Copy quote

• I live for the moment. I'm basically a Buddhist-type person. I'm just here right now, and I don't think about what's going to happen a hundred years from now. I try to concentrate on what's going on right now. But I'm really trying to run this company like it is going to be here a hundred years from now. That's what's important.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Running, Buddhist, Business

  "The TH Interview: Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia". Interview with Jacob Gordon, www.treehugger.com. February 7, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

• I never wanted to be a businessman; I was a craftsman and good at working with my hands. At some point, I decided that this company is my best resource. Patagonia now exists to put into practice all the things that smart people are saying we have to do not only to save the planet but to save the economy.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Smart, Hands, Practice

  17 Copy quote

• The more I make the more I can give away.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Giving, I Can

  4 Copy quote

• It's okay to be eccentric if you're rich; otherwise you're just crazy.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Crazy, Eccentric, Rich

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• Climbing for speed records will probably become more popular, a mania which has just begun. Climbers climb not just to see how fast and efficiently they can do it, but far worse, to see how much faster and more efficiently they are than a party which did the same climb a few days before. The climb becomes secondary, no more important than a racetrack. Man is pitted against man.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Party, Men, Climbing

  7 Copy quote

• During the sixties, all the risk-type sports were very popular, because everybody was rebelling against their parents, or rebelling against the whole system. But those days are over. This is the day of conservatism.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Sports, Climbing, Parent

  4 Copy quote

• I believe the accepted model of capitalism that demands endless growth deserves the blame for the destruction of nature, and it should be displaced. Failing that, I try to work with those companies and help them change the way they think about our resources.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Believe, Thinking, Growth

  6 Copy quote

• You can solo-climb Everest without using oxygen or you can pay guides and Sherpas to carry your loads, put ladders across crevasses, lay in 6,000 feet of fixed ropes, and have one Sherpa pulling you and another pushing you. ... The goal of climbing big, dangerous mountains should be to attain some sort of spiritual and personal growth, but this won't happen if you compromise away the entire process.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Spiritual, Feet, Climbing

  16 Copy quote

• Growth isn't central at all, because I'm trying to run this company as if it's going to be here a hundred years from now. And if you take where we are today and add 15% growth, like public companies need to have for their stock to stay up in value, I'd be a multi-trillion-dollar company in 40 years. Which is impossible, of course.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Running, Business, Years

  "The TH Interview: Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia". Interview with Jacob Gordon, www.treehugger.com. February 7, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

• The future of Yosemite climbing lies not in Yosemite, but in using the new techniques in the great granite ranges of the world.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Lying, Climbing, Technique

  7 Copy quote

• I wanted to distance myself from those pasty faced corpses in suits I saw in airline magazine ads. If I was going to become a businessman, I was going to do it on my own terms.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Distance, Magazines, Saws

  4 Copy quote

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