Yvon Chouinard Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

Most of the damage we cause to the planet is the result of our own ignorance.

Yvon Chouinard
We took special pride in the fact that climbing rocks and icefalls had no economic value in society...We were like a wild species living in the edges of an ecosystem - adaptable, resilient and tough.

Yvon Chouinard
If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, 'This sucks, I'm going to do my own thing.'

Yvon Chouinard
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
Everything we personally own that's made, sold, shipped, stored, cleaned, and ultimately thrown away does some environmental harm every step of the way, harm that we're either directly responsible for or is done on our behalf.

Yvon Chouinard
How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top

Yvon Chouinard
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
At Patagonia, making a profit is not the goal because the Zen master would say profits happen 'when you do everything else right'.

Yvon Chouinard
Who are businesses really responsible to? Their customers? Shareholders? Employees? We would argue that it's none of the above. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy environment there are no shareholders, no employees, no customers and no business.

Yvon Chouinard
Evil doesn't have to be an overt act; it can be merely the absence of good. If you have the ability, the resources, and the opportunity to do good and you do nothing, that can be evil.

Yvon Chouinard
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