What draws me to this story is that it reflects a sincere attempt to address the core tension between the market’s demand for endless growth and the planet’s need for a break. (Location 119)

What all this means is that our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. (Location 164)

If we do, it won’t be because we learned how to be “ethical” shoppers. Rather, it will be because we found things to do other than shopping. Like building social and political movements that change the rules of the game. Like deriving deep pleasure from experiences that are not for sale at any price, whether it’s time in nature or time with our loved ones. (Location 168)

This is something else we can learn from Yvon Chouinard’s long journey. Love of nature, and the desire to experience the natural world more intensely, is what drove Chouinard to make his first line of climbing gear. (Location 171)

If we could all come to see our consumer products as tools that help us to live our real lives—rather than as substitutes and surrogates for that life—we would need many fewer products to be happy. (Location 173)

We have always considered Patagonia an experiment in doing business in unconventional ways. (Location 186)

Patagonia exists to challenge conventional wisdom and present a new style of responsible business. (Location 241)

Patagonia and its two thousand employees have the means and the will to prove to the rest of the business world that doing the right thing makes for a good and profitable business. (Location 242)

History

We American climbers were brought up reading the transcendental writers like Emerson, Thoreau, and John Muir. You climb the mountains or visit the wilderness but leave no trace of having been there. (Location 359)