- said, “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful”.”
- “Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.”
- “The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.”
- “You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.”
- “Can you really explain to a fish what it’s like to walk on land? One day on land is worth a thousand years of talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value.”
- “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”
- “If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”
- “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
- “I don’t have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It’s like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GNP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don’t do that though. I don’t use very many of those claim checks. There’s nothing material I want very much. And I’m going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die.”
- “It’s class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn’t be.”
- “My family won’t receive huge amounts of my net worth. That doesn’t mean they’ll get nothing. My children have already received some money from me and Susie and will receive more. I still believe in the philosophy – FORTUNE quoted me saying this 20 years ago – that a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.”
- “Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
- “We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.”
- “You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.”
- “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
- “A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.”
- “A girl in a convertible is worth five in the phonebook.”
- “When they open that envelope, the first instruction is to take my pulse again.”
- “We believe that according the name ‘investors’ to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a ‘romantic.’”
- “When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”
- “In the insurance business, there is no statute of limitation on stupidity.”
On Success
On Helping Others
On Life
Funny Ones
Buffett:
- Imagine a lifetime “punch card” for investing decisions
- Closed his partnership and did not actively invest in public markets from 1970 to 1974
- Did not buy a single new equity position forBerkshirefrom 1984-1987
“I made my first investment at age eleven. I was wasting my life up until then.” – Warren Buffett
“My idea of a group decision is to look in the mirror.” – Warren Buffett
“It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett
“You’re lucky in life if you have the right heroes. I advise all of you, to the extent that you can, pick out a few heroes. There’s nothing like the right ones.” – Warren Buffett
“I’m the luckiest guy in the world in terms of what I do for a living. No one can tell me to do things I don’t believe in or things I think are stupid.” – Warren Buffett
“I choose to work with every single person that I work with. That ends up being the most important factor. I don’t interact with people I don’t like or admire. That’s the key. It’s like marrying.” – Warren Buffett
“I don’t want to be on the other side of the table from the customer. I was never selling anything that I didn’t believe in myself or use myself.” – Warren Buffett [Other than MCO… — Ed.]
“Investment must be rational; if you can’t understand it, don’t do it.” – Warren Buffett
“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy, and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” – Warren Buffett
“We believe that according the name ‘investors’ to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic.” – Warren Buffett
“Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.” – Warren Buffett
“We rarely use much debt and, when we do, we attempt to structure it on a long-term fixed rate basis. We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet. This conservatism has penalized our results but it is the only behavior that leaves us comfortable, considering our fiduciary obligations to policyholders, depositors, lenders and the many equity holders who have committed unusually large portions of their net worth to our care.”
“In the end, alchemy, whether it is metallurgical or financial, fails. A base business can not be transformed into a golden business by tricks of accounting or capital structure. The man claiming to be a financial alchemist may become rich. But gullible investors rather than business achievements will usually be the source of his wealth.” – Warren Buffett
“You really don’t need leverage in this world much. If you’re smart, you’re going to make a lot of money without borrowing. I’ve never borrowed a significant amount of money in my life. Never. Never will. I’ve got no interest in it. The other reason is I never thought I would be way happier when I had 2X instead of X. You ought to have a good time all the time as you go along.” – Warren Buffett
“The financial calculus that Charlie and I employ would never permit our trading a good night’s sleep for a shot at a few extra percentage points of return. I’ve never believed in risking what my friends and family have and need in order to pursue what they don’t have and don’t need.” – Warren Buffett
“In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses-How to Value a Business, and How to Think about Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business who’s earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now.” -Warren Buffett
“The strategy we’ve adopted precludes our following standard diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the strategy must be riskier than that employed by more conventional investors. We disagree. We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it.” -Warren Buffett
“An argument is made that there are just too many question marks about the near future; wouldn’t it be better to wait until things clear up a bit? You know the prose: “Maintain buying reserves until current uncertainties are resolved,” etc. Before reaching for that crutch, face up to two unpleasant facts: The future is never clear and you pay a very high price for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values.” -Warren Buffett
“The most common cause of low prices is pessimism – sometimes pervasive, sometimes specific to a company or industry. We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism but because we like the prices it produces.” -Warren Buffett
“In economics, you always want to ask, ‘And then what?'” – Warren Buffett
Buffett and Munger on intellectual curiosity:
- “Cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.”
- “Continually challenge and be willing to amend your best loved ideas.”
- “You need a lot of curiosity for a long, long time.”
- “Warren and I are very good at changing our prior conclusions. We work at developing that facility because without it, disaster often comes.”
Quotations- Warren Buffett
Accounting:
“Accounting consequences do not influence our operating or capital-allocation decisions. When acquisition costs are similar, we much prefer to purchase $2 of earnings that is not reportable by us under standard accounting principles than to purchase $1 of earnings that is reportable.
