“I think there’s some mythology in this idea that I’ve been this great enlightener of Warren. He hasn’t needed much enlightenment. But we know more now than five years ago.” http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:U59Ns6D8WZcJ:www.tilsonfunds.com/motley_berkshire_brkmtg03notes.php3+%22charlie+munger%22+%22this+is+a+good+lesson+for+anyone%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
“It’s hard to believe that he’s getting better with each passing year. It won’t go on forever, but Warrenis actually improving. It’s remarkable: Most almost-72-year-old men are not improving, but Warrenis.” http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/2003/commentary030509wt.htm
“The most common concern investors seem to have aboutBerkshireis, “What happens when Buffett dies?” Munger acknowledged that “if he were gone, we couldn’t invest the money as well asWarren,” but noted that “the place is drowning in money — we have great business pounding out money. If the stock went down,Berkshirecould buy it back. There’s no reason to think it will go to hell in a bucket, and I think there’s reason to believe it could go on quite well. I’d be horrified if it isn’t bigger and better over time, even after
Warren dies.”
http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/2003/commentary030509wt.htm
Wealth
“We’ve had the most massive creation of wealth for people a lot younger than those who formerly got wealth in the history of the world. The world is full of young people who really want to get rich, and {when I left school] nobody thought it was a reasonable possibility.” http://www.law.harvard.edu/alumni/bulletin/2001/summer/feature_1-1.html
“I have concluded that most PhD economists under appraise the power of the common-stock-based “wealth effect”, under current extreme conditions.. “wealth effects” involve mathematical puzzles that are not nearly so well worked out as physics theories and never can be. …what has happened inJapan … has shaken up academic economics, as it obviously should, creating strong worries about recession from “wealth effects” in reverse.” http://www.tilsonfunds.com/Mungerwritings2001.pdf#search=%22%20%22charlie%20Munger%22%20Outstanding%20investor%20digest%22
Wesco:
“Wesco had a market capitalization of $40 million when we bought it [in the early 1970s]. It’s $2 billion now. It’s been a long slog to a perfectly respectable outcome — not as good as BerkshireHathaway or Microsoft, but there’s always someone in life who’s done better.” http://www.tilsonfunds.com/
“Our approach has worked for us. Look at the fun we, our managers, and our shareholders are having. More people should copy us. It’s not difficult, but it looks difficult because it’s unconventional — it isn’t the way things are normally done. We have low overhead, don’t have quarterly goals and budgets or a standard personnel system, and our investing is much more concentrated than average. It’s simple and common sense.” http://www.fool.com/boringport/2000/boringport00051500.htm
“You shouldn’t buy Wesco stock instead of Berkshire’s.” http://www.fool.com/news/foth/2001/foth010508.htm
Wisdom:
“You don’t have to have perfect wisdom to get very rich – just a bit better than average over a longperiod of time.” http://www.tilsonfunds.com/brkmtg05notes.pdf
“If you get into the mental habit of relating what you’re reading to the basic structure of the underlying ideas being demonstrated, you gradually accumulate some wisdom.” http://www.jolconsulting.com/updocuments/details_2.pdf#search=%22%22Charlie%20Munger%22%20%20%22life%20is%20just%20one%20damn%22%22
World Book Encyclopedias
“It’s simplicity itself that its future will be way worse than its past.” http://www.designs.valueinvestorinsight.com/bonus/bonuscontent/docs/Tilson_2006_BRK_Meeting_Notes.pdf#search=%22Charlie%20munger%20and%20foundation%20and%20croupier%22
Worldly Wisdom
“What is elementary, worldly wisdom? Well, the first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ‘em back.If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form. You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience ? both vicarious and direct ? on this latticework of models. You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life. You’ve got to hang experience on a latticework of models in your head. What are the models? Well, the first rule is that you’ve got to have multiple models ? because if you just have one or two that you’re using, the nature of human psychology is such that you’ll torture reality so that it fits your models, or at least you’ll think it does. You become the equivalent of a chiropractor who, of course, is the great boob in medicine. It’s like the old saying, “To the man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” And of course, that’s the way the chiropractor goes about practicing medicine. But that’s a perfectly disastrous way to think and a perfectly disastrous way to operate in the world. So you’ve got to have multiple models.And the models have to come from multiple disciplines ? because all the wisdom of the world is not to be found in one little academic department. That’s why poetry professors, by and large, are so unwise in a worldly sense. They don’t have enough models in their heads. So you’ve got to have models across a fair array of disciplines. You may say, “My God, this is already getting way too tough.” But, fortunately, it isn’t that tough ? because 80 or 90 important models will carry about 90% of the freight in making you a worldly ? wise person. And, of those, only a mere handful really carry very heavy freight. http://www.thinkfn.com/en/content/view/52/?id=124
“Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group … then to hell with them.” http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578643031/consciousinve-20/104-7644521-2497538
Work
“The way to win is to work, work, work, work and hope to have a few insights…. And you’re probably not going to be smart enough to find thousands in a lifetime. And when you get a few, you really load up. It’s just that simple.” http://ycombinator.com/munger.html
“Why should it be easy to do something that, if done well, two or three times, will make your family rich for life?” http://www.steadygains.com/makingof.cfm Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist Roger Lowenstein citing the Economist, “December 5, 1992, Beating the Market; Yes it can be done.”
Worry
“I think there’s something to be said for developing the disposition to own stocks without fretting.” http://www.tilsonfunds.com/
“We fret way earlier than other people. We left a lot of money on the table through early fretting. It’s the way we are — you’ll just have to live with it.” http://www.
