List of Yvon Chouinard Quotes

The Future Of Yosemite Climbing Lies Not In Yosemite, But In Using The New Techniques In The Great Granite Ranges Of The World.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's Okay To Be Eccentric If You're Rich; Otherwise You're Just Crazy.

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.

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.

The More I Make The More I Can Give Away.

We've Teamed Up With Some Japanese Companies To, Basically By 2010, Make All Our Clothing Out Of Recycled And Recyclable Fibers. And We're Going To Accept Ownership Of Our Products From Birth To Birth. So If You Buy A Jacket From Us, Or A Shirt ,or A Pair Of Pants, When You're Done With It, You Can Give It Back To Us And We'll Make More Shirts And Pants Out Of It.

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.