The whole purpose of an adventure is to gain some spiritual or emotional insight. When you compromise the process, you compromise the gain.

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

The most important thing is to get the fish in quickly and leave it in the water. Forget the hero pose.

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.

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.

The more you know, the less you need.

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.