Mike > Mike's Quotes

“I'm an adventurer, looking for treasure”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Never stop dreaming.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“to die tomorrow was no worse than dying on any other day. Every day was there to be lived or to mark one’s departure from this world.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Maktub. If I am really a part of your dream, you'll come back one day.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“We are travelers on a cosmic journey,stardust,swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Because true love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“I'm alive. When I'm eating that's all I think about. If I'm on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight,it will be just as good a day as any to die. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. Life is the moment we are living now.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“When you possess great treasures within you and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe. We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal.”
― Paulo Coelho

“Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive, and certainly not as the same person.”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

“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, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

“I've always thought of myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw myself passionately into a sport or activity until I reach about an 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession that doesn't appeal to me. Once I reach 80 percent level I like to go off and do something totally different; that probably explains the diversity of the Patagonia product like - and why our versatile, multifaceted clothes are the most successful.”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

“Doing risk sport had taught me another important lesson: never exceed your limits. You push the envelope and you live for those moments when you’re right on the edge, but you don’t go over. You have to be true to yourself; you have to know your strengths and limitations and live within your means.”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

“It's okay to be eccentric if you're rich; otherwise you're just crazy.”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

“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, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

“Reusing something instead of immediately discarding it, when done for the right reasons, can be an act of love which expresses our own dignity. —”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual

“It was also clear that in order to survive at this game, we had to get serious.”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

“If you focus on the process of climbing, you’ll end up on the summit.”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

“After we had pondered our responsibilities and financial liabilities, one day it dawned on me that I was a businessman and would probably be one for a long time. It was also clear that in order to survive at this game, we had to get serious. I also knew that I would never be happy playing by the normal rules of business; I wanted to distance myself as far as possible from those pasty-faced corpses in suits I saw in airline magazine ads. If I had to be a businessman, I was going to do it on my own terms. One”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

“use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual

“To re-create the entrepreneurial atmosphere of the sort we’d had at Chouinard Equipment, we broke the line into eight categories and hired eight product czars to manage them. Each was responsible for his or her own product development, marketing, inventory, quality control, and coordination with the three sales channels—wholesale, mail order, and retail.”
― Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

“Why is a worm so effective? Because it is always moving.”
― Yvon Chouinard, Simple Fly Fishing: Techniques for Tenkara and Rod and Reel