American investor and philanthropist | Born: 30 August 1930 , Omaha, Nebraska, United States.
“Talking to Time Magazine a few years back, Peter Drucker got to the heart of things: “I will tell you a secret: Dealmaking beats working. Dealmaking is exciting and fun, and working is grubby. Running anything is primarily an enormous amount of grubby detail work . . . dealmaking is romantic, sexy. That’s why you have deals that make no sense.”
“When a person with money meets a person with experience, the one with experience ends up with the money and the one with money leaves with experience.”
“Gold is a way of going long on fear, and it has been a pretty good way of going long on fear from time to time. But you really have to hope people become more afraid in a year or two years than they are now. And if they become more afraid you make money, if they become less afraid you lose money, but the gold itself doesn’t produce anything.”
“If you invested in a low-cost index fund--where you don't put the money in at one time, but average in over 10 years--you'll do better than 90% of people who start investing at the same time.”
“There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn't that a little like saving up sex for your old age?”
“If you’ve got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, you’ve got a very good business. If you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by 10%, then you’ve got a bad business.”
“The key is having more information than the other guy – then analysing it right and using it rationally.”
“Honesty is a very expensive gift, Don't expect it from cheap people.”
“Many shall be restored that now are fallen and many shall fall that are now in honor.”
“I like it when people say, ‘Gee, that’s a pretty good-looking painting.’ But it’s my painting, and when somebody says, ‘Why don’t you use more red instead of blue?’ Good-bye. It’s my painting. And I don’t care what they sell it for. The painting itself will never be finished. That’s one of the great things about it.”
“From this irritating reality comes The First Law of Corporate Survival for ambitious CEOs who pile on leverage and run large and unfathomable derivatives books: Modest incompetence simply won’t do; it’s mindboggling screw-ups that are required.”
“In some corner of the world they are probably still holding regular meetings of the Flat Earth Society. We derive no comfort because important people, vocal people, or great numbers of people agree with us. Nor do we derive comfort if they don't.”
“For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.”
“Do what you love and work for whom you admire the most, and you've given yourself the best chance in life you can.”
“The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
“But then it dawned on me that the opinion of someone who is always wrong has its own special utility to decision-makers.”
“our experience with newly-minted MBAs has not been that great. Their academic records always look terrific and the candidates always know just what to say; but too often they are short on personal commitment to the company and general business savvy. It’s difficult to teach a new dog old tricks.”
“If you wait till you know everything it's too late”
“(Thomas J. Watson Sr. of IBM followed the same rule: “I’m no genius,” he said. “I’m smart in spots—but I stay around those spots.”)”
“The more you learn, the more you earn.”
“We are suspicious of those CEOs who regularly claim they do know the future—and we become downright incredulous if they consistently reach their declared targets. Managers that always promise to “make the numbers” will at some point be tempted to make up the numbers.”
“Having firstrate people on the team is more important than designing hierarchies and clarifying who reports to whom”
“Derivatives are like sex. It's not who we're sleeping with, it's who they're sleeping with that's the problem.”
“It’s good to learn from your mistakes. It’s better to learn from other people’s mistakes.”
“If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes.”
“Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner.”
“Reading could be the BEST addiction one could have. The only proven side effect is imagination & an edge in knowledge.”
“The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”
“There is no tougher job in corporate America than running an airline: Despite the huge amounts of equity capital that have been injected into it, the industry, in aggregate, has posted a net loss since its birth after Kitty Hawk. Airline managers need brains, guts, and experience—and”
“You should never test the depth of the water with both feet.”
“Charlie’s dictum: “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.”
“In the 54 years (Charlie Munger and I) have worked together, we have never forgone an attractive purchase because of the macro or political environment, or the views of other people. In fact, these subjects never come up when we make decisions.”
“It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”
“Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”
“An idiot with a plan can beat a genius without a plan.”
“be greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy.”
“It is madness to risk losing what you need in pursuing what you simply desire.”
“ABCs of business decay, which are arrogance, bureaucracy and complacency.”
“Failing conventionally is the route to go; as a group, lemmings may have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press”
“In fact, when Warren Buffett was once asked about the key to success, he pointed to a stack of nearby books and said, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”
“It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.”
“Never give up searching for the job that you are passionate about”
“If you see somebody with even reasonable intelligence and a terrific passion for what they do and who can get people around them to march, even when those people can't see over the top of the next hill, things are gonna happen”
“stocks of companies selling commodity-like products should come with a warning label: “Competition may prove hazardous to human wealth.”
“What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.”
“Despite our policy of candor, we will discuss our activities in marketable securities only to the extent legally required. Good investment ideas are rare, valuable and subject to competitive appropriation just as good product or business acquisition ideas are.”
“If your employees, including your CEO, wish to give to their alma maters or other institutions to which they feel a personal attachment, we believe they should use their own money, not yours.”
“It is not greed that drives the world but envy.”
“Our goal is more modest: We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”
“Never depend on single income. Make investment to create a second source.”
“Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.”
“Buy a stock the way you would buy a house. Understand and like it such that you’d be content to own it in the absence of any market.”
“It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked.”
“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.”
“[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”
“Culture, more than rule books, determines how an organization behaves.”
“To be successful, look for the job you will take if you don't need a job”
“Writing a check separates a commitment from a conversation.”
“If you can't tell whose side someone is on, they are not on yours.”
“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But, if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”
“There's never just one cockroach in the kitchen.”
“You never know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out.”
“as happens in Wall Street all too often, what the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.”
“Our favorite holding period is forever. We are just the opposite of those who hurry to sell and book profits when companies perform well but who tenaciously hang on to businesses that disappoint. Peter Lynch aptly likens such behavior to cutting the flowers and watering the weeds.”
“Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be.”
“So smile when you read a headline that says “Investors lose as market falls.” Edit it in your mind to “Disinvestors lose as market falls—but investors gain.” Though writers often forget this truism, there is a buyer for every seller and what hurts one necessarily helps the other. (As they say in golf matches: “Every putt makes someone happy.”)”
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minuted to ruin it. If you think about that you'll do things differently.”
“Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill. ”
“I won't close down a business of subnormal profitability merely to add a fraction of a point to our corporate returns. I also feel it inappropriate for even an exceptionally profitable company to fund an operation once it appears to have unending losses in prospect. Adam Smith would disagree with my first proposition and Karl Marx would disagree with my second; the middle ground is the only position that leaves me comfortable.”
“The rich invest in time, the poor invest in money.”
“I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.”
“Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”
“We need a moderately-priced stock market… The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But, unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do. For the investor, a too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favorable business developments.”
“The most important investment you can make is in yourself.”
“When I was sixteen, I had just two things on my mind - girls and cars. I wasn't very good with girls. So I thought about cars. I thought about girls, too, but I had more luck with cars. Let's say that when I turned sixteen, a genie had appeared to me. And that genie said, 'Warren, I'm going to give you the car of your choice. It'll be here tomorrow morning with a big bow tied on it. Brand-new. And it's all yours.' Having heard all the genie stories, I would say, 'What's the catch?' And the genie would answer, 'There's only one catch. This is the last car you're ever going to ge tin your life. So it's got to last a lifetime.' If that had happened, I would have picked out that car. But, can you imagine, knowing it had to last a lifetime, what I would do with it? I would read the manual about five times. I would always keep it garaged. If there was the least little dent or scratch, I'd have it fixed right away because I wouldn't want it rusting. I would baby that car, because it would have to last a lifetime. That's exactly the position you are in concerning your mind and body. You only get one mind and one body. And it's got to last a lifetime. Now, it's very easy to let them ride for many years. But if you don't take care of that mind and that body, they'll be a wreck forty years later, just life the car would be. It's what you do right now, today, that determines how your mind and body will operate ten, twenty, and thirty years from now.”
“Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.”
“Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the models. Beware of geeks bearing formulas. ”
“I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.”
“If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.”
“I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”
“I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.”
“In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you.”
“I do know that when I am 60, I should be attempting to achieve different personal goals than those which had priority at age 20.”
“It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.”
“You do things when the opportunities come along. I've had periods in my life when I've had a bundle of ideals come along, and I've had long dry spells. If I get an ideal next week, I'll do something. If not, I won't do a damn thing.”
“The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.”
“What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.”
“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”
“In the world of business, the people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love.”
“People always ask me where they should go to work, and I always tell them to go to work for whom they admire the most.”
“It's nice to have a lot of money, but you know, you don't want to keep it around forever. I prefer buying things. Otherwise, it's a little like saving sex for your old age.”
“Wall Street is the only place that people drive to in a Rolls Royce to take advice from people who ride the subway.”
“We don’t have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest.”
“calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor “is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic.”
“I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.”
“Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing”
“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.”
“You’ve gotta keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.”
“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult. ”
“You know ... you keep doing the same things and you keep getting the same result over and over again.”
“I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.”
“If you aren't thinking about owning a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes.”
“No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
“Rule No. 1 : Never lose money. Rule No. 2 : Never forget Rule No. 1.”
“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
“Get something to improve yourself at least 1% each day”
“I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute. ”
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
“Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful”
“Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.”
“Games are won by players who focus on the playing field –- not by those whose eyes are glued to the scoreboard.”
“I learned to go into business only with people whom I like, trust, and admire.”
“If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.”
“An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it.”
“Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.”
“A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse—not a remarkable mathematician.”
“If past history was all that is needed to play the game of money, the richest people would be librarians.”
“You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
“Intensity is the price of excellence.”
“...not doing what we love in the name of greed is very poor management of our lives.”
“If you’re in the luckiest one per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”
“Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble”
“When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.”
“Do not save what is left after spending; instead spend what is left after saving.”
“Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.”
“In the long run managements stressing accounting appearance over economic substance usually achieve little of either.”
“Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
“I am not a businessman, I am an artist”