Quote

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

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Yvon Chouinard
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: November 9
Businessperson
Environmentalist
Mountaineer
Rock Climber
Lewiston
Maine
Place
Diverse
Everything
Spread
Trying
Constantly
Make
Species
Always
Hold
Like
Wants
Monoculture
Doesn
Accumulation
Nature
Empires

More quotes by Yvon Chouinard

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The more you know, the less you need.
Yvon Chouinard
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Traveling is my form of self-education.
Yvon Chouinard
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...it's the same with business. If you focus on the goal and not the process, you inevitably compromise. Businessmen who focus on profits wind up in the hole. For me, profit is what happens when you do everything else right.
Yvon Chouinard
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The reason it was so scary was that there was only one climber capable of rescuing us, and that was Layton Kor, and he was in Colorado.
Yvon Chouinard
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It's okay to be eccentric if you're rich otherwise you're just crazy.
Yvon Chouinard
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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
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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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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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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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The word adventure has gotten overused. For me, when everything goes wrong - that's when adventure starts
Yvon Chouinard
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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
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Hire extremely independent, intelligent, and passionate people, not necessarily experts. Maybe three or four of my employees have MBAs, and those guys aren't necessarily at the top of the food chain.
Yvon Chouinard
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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
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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
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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
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I'm the company philosopher and the burr in the saddle. I'm the one who says we need to try harder, improve the quality of our products, become a part of the political process, help elect people who are good for the environment.
Yvon Chouinard
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My favorite quote about entrepreneurship is that to understand an entrepreneur, you should study a juvenile delinquent. They're both saying: This sucks and I'm going to do it another way. You have to want to break the rules and prove that your way works.
Yvon Chouinard
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Going back to a simpler life is not a step backwards.
Yvon Chouinard
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Hiring people with diverse backgrounds brings in a flexibility of thought and openness to new ways of doing things, as opposed to hiring clones from business schools who have been taught a codified way of doing business.
Yvon Chouinard
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How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top
Yvon Chouinard