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We're a part of nature. As we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves. It's a selfish thing to want to protect nature.

Yvon Chouinard

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Yvon Chouinard
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: November 9
Businessperson
Environmentalist
Mountaineer
Rock Climber
Lewiston
Maine
Environment
Nature
Part
Thing
Selfish
Destroy
Protect

More quotes by Yvon Chouinard

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The rules of the game must be constantly updated to keep up with the expanding technology. Otherwise we overkill the classic climbs and delude ourselves into thinking we are better climbers than the pioneers.
Yvon Chouinard
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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
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The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life it’s so easy to make it complex.
Yvon Chouinard
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I purposely try to hire people who are really self-motivated and good at what they do, and then I just leave them alone.
Yvon Chouinard
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The whole purpose of an adventure is to gain some spiritual or emotional insight. When you compromise the process, you compromise the gain.
Yvon Chouinard
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The more you know, the less you need.
Yvon Chouinard
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Is climbing, as a passion and as a sport, better off now than it was in the past? We can do harder climbs now in faster times - techniques are more refined and equipement more sophisticated - but are we really any better off?
Yvon Chouinard
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Going back to a simpler life is not a step backwards.
Yvon Chouinard
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I say the last 10 percent of the way to perfection takes so much of your life that it isn't worth the effort. This overzealous attitude is what creates religious fanatics, body Nazis, and athletes who are exceedingly dull to converse with.
Yvon Chouinard
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Surfing and climbing are both useless sports. You get to be conquistadors of the useless. You climb to the summit and there is nothing there. And you could hike to the top from another direction. How you get there is the important part. It's the same with surfing.
Yvon Chouinard
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Going back to a simpler life based on living by sufficiency rather than excess is not a step backward.
Yvon Chouinard
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The word adventure has gotten overused. For me, when everything goes wrong - that's when adventure starts
Yvon Chouinard
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You have to remember this was the '60s, when climbing was dangerous and sex was safe.
Yvon Chouinard
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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
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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
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A real capitalist knows that $10 given today does a lot more good than $100 given 10 years from now.
Yvon Chouinard
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The secret to happiness is to be working at your passion. If you want to be miserable, lead a desperate life like everybody else where they drag their asses to work everyday because they hate their job.
Yvon Chouinard
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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
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Traveling is my form of self-education. Every stream I fish now is not as good as it used to be. Traveling is my form of self-education. Every stream I fish now is not as good as it used to be. If you keep your eyes open as you travel around, you realize we are destroying this planet.
Yvon Chouinard
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Traveling is my form of self-education.
Yvon Chouinard