There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything.” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway. Either way, nothing happens.
Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive, and certainly not as the same person.
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.
It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.
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.’
The solution may be for a lot of the world’s problems is to turn around and take a forward step. You can’t just keep trying to make a flawed system work.
We’re a part of nature. As we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves. It’s a selfish thing to want to protect nature.
You ask me about the past, you ask me about the future, the only way to be happy is to be living 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.
How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top.
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.
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.
Going back to a simpler life is not a step backwards.
So all of these companies that are going for the big growth, if it continues for any length of time, will outlast their resources and outlast their customers and go belly-up. And that’s why these huge companies have massive layoffs all the time.
Profit is what happens when you do everything else right.
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.
You have to remember this was the ’60s, when climbing was dangerous and sex was safe.
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.
Fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all.
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.