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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Yvon Chouinard
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: November 9
Businessperson
Environmentalist
Mountaineer
Rock Climber
Lewiston
Maine
Saws
Ads
Term
Businessman
Become
Magazine
Wanted
Faced
Going
Suits
Pasty
Magazines
Pasties
Distance
Airline
Terms
Corpses

More quotes by Yvon Chouinard

Image
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
Image
Nature doesn't like empires. It doesn't like accumulation in one place, it doesn't like monoculture. It's always trying to make diverse species. It wants to spread everything out. And we're constantly trying to hold everything in.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
The most important thing is to get the fish in quickly and leave it in the water. Forget the hero pose.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
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
Image
I've accepted the fact that there's a beginning and end to everything. All species are born, evolve, and then die off. We're going through the 6th great extinction and the large mammals are going first and, you know what - we're large mammals!
Yvon Chouinard
Image
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
Image
It's okay to be eccentric if you're rich otherwise you're just crazy.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
We're not citizens anymore. We're consumers. That's what we're called. It's just like being an alcoholic and being in denial that you're an alcoholic. We're in denial that each and every one of us is the problem. And until we face up to that, nothing's going to happen.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
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
Image
The word adventure has gotten overused. For me, when everything goes wrong - that's when adventure starts
Yvon Chouinard
Image
Mainly, my job is to be on the outside and bring ideas into the company and forge change. Most people hate change—it’s threatening. I thrive on it.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
One thing I did not want to change, even if we got serious, work had to be enjoyable on a daily basis. We all had to come to work on the balls of our feet and go up the stairs two at a time.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
You ask me about the past, you ask me about the future, the only way to be happy is to be living right now.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
Everything we make pollutes. The most responsible thing we can do is to make each product as well as we know how so it lasts as long as possible.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
I drive old cars, all my Patagonia clothes are years and years old, I hardly have anything new. I try to lead a very simple life. I am not a consumer of anything. And I much prefer sleeping on somebody's floor than in a motel room.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
No young kid growing up dreams of someday becoming a businessman. He wants to be a fireman, a sponsored athlete or a forest ranger The Lee Iacoccas, Donald Trumps, and Jack Welchs of the business world are heroes to no one except other businessmen with similar values.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
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
Image
It's not an adventure until something goes wrong.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
The more I make the more I can give away.
Yvon Chouinard
Image
True adventure begins when everything goes wrong.
Yvon Chouinard