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I'll Bring My Tax Returns; You Bring Yours. I'll Meet You Anytime Anywhere.
-Warren Buffett
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I'll Bring My Tax

Warren Buffett
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I'll Bring My Tax Returns; You Bring Yours. I'll Meet You Anytime Anywhere.

Understanding the Quote: "i'll bring my tax returns; you bring yours. i'll meet you anytime..."

This quote by Warren Buffett reflects deeply on the theme of return. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Return, Taxes, Tax Returns, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Warren Buffett interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is celebrated for insightful thoughts on return and taxes. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Return
Taxes
Tax Returns
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The Most Important Investment You Can Make Is In Yourself. Very Few People Get Anything Like Their Potential Horsepower Translated Into The Actual Horsepower Of Their Output In Life. Potential Exceeds Realization For Many People...the Best Asset Is Your Own Self. You Can Become To An Enormous Degree The Person You Want To Be.
Self
People
Important
People Who Watch Their Weight, Golf Scores, And Fuel Bills Seem To Shun Quantitative Evaluation Of Their Investment Management Skills Although It Involves The Most Important Client In The World-themselves.
Golf
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A Pin Lies In Wait For Every Bubble. And When The Two Eventually Meet, A New Wave Of Investors Learns Some Very Old Lessons: First, Many In Wall Street (a Community In Which Quality Control Is Not Prized) Will Sell Investors Anything They Will Buy. Second, Speculation Is Most Dangerous When It Looks Easiest.
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Investors Should Remember That Excitement And Expenses Are Their Enemies.
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On His Giving Pledge Philanthropy: The Way I Got The Message Out Was To Get A Copy Of Forbes, Look Down That 400 List And Start Making Phone Calls! Bill And Melinda [gates] Did The Same Thing. So Keep Publishing The List So I Can Milk It.
Phones
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If I Subscribed To The Efficient Market Theory I Would Still Be Delivering Papers
Paper
Theory
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Risk Can Be Greatly Reduced By Concentrating On Only A Few Holdings.
Risk
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I Don't Really Think That, As A Society, We [americans] Want To Confer Blessings On Generation After Generation Who Contribute Nothing To Society, Simply Because Somebody In The Far Distant Past Happened To Amass A Great Sum Of Wealth.
Blessing
Past
Thinking
Investors Should Remember That Excitement And Expenses Are Their Enemies. And If They Insist On Trying To Time Their Participation In Equities, They Should Try To Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy And Greedy Only When Others Are Fearful.
Business
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Writing Checks To The Irs That Include Strings Of Zeros Does Not Bother Me ... Overall, We Feel Extraordinarily Lucky To Have Been Dealt A Hand In Life That Enables Us To Write Large Checks To The Government Rather Than One Requiring The Government To Regularly Write Checks To Us-say, Because We Are Disabled Or Unemployed.
Business
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I Don't Read Economic Forecasts. I Don't Read The Funny Papers.
Investing
Paper
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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.
Looks
Esoteric
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The Business Schools Reward Difficult Complex Behavior More Than Simple Behavior, But Simple Behavior Is More Effective.
Business
War
School
What's Nice About Investing Is You Don't Have To Swing At Every Pitch.
Business
Nice
Swings
I Will Do Anything That Is Basically Covered By The Law To Reduce Berkshire's Tax Rate. For Example, On Wind Energy, We Get A Tax Credit If We Build A Lot Of Wind Farms. That's The Only Reason To Build Them. They Don't Make Sense Without The Tax Credit.
Wind Farms
Law
Energy
The Only Time To Buy These Is On A Day With No 'y' In It.
Funny
Life
Money
It's Us Fun Being A Horse When The Tractor Comes Along, Or The Blacksmith When The Car Comes Along.
Horse
Fun
Car
I Would Say The Biggest Single Cause Was We Had An Incredible Residential Real Estate Bubble.
Real
Causes
Incredibles
The Nature Of Democracy Is Such That When There's - There'll Be Revulsion, Obviously, Towards - That's Never Going To Happen Again.
Democracy
Revulsion
Happens
There Are Three Important Principles To Graham's Approach. [the First Is To Look At Stocks As Fractional Shares Of A Business, Which] Gives You An Entirely Different View Than Most People Who Are In The Market. [the Second Principle Is The Margin-of-safety Concept, Which] Gives You The Competitive Advantage. [the Third Is Having A True Investor's Attitude Toward The Stock Market, Which] If You Have That Attitude, You Start Out Ahead Of 99 Percent Of All The People Who Are Operating In The Stock Market - It's An Enormous Advantage.
Attitude
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I Am Quite Serious When I Say That I Do Not Believe There Are, On The Whole Earth Besides, So Many Intensified Bores As In These United States. No Man Can Form An Adequate Idea Of The Real Meaning Of The Word, Without Coming Here.
Real
Believe
Men
No Matter How Great The Talent Or Efforts, Some Things Just Take Time.
Smart
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I Don't Need 15 Houses. Owning Real Estate Doesn't Mean Much To Me. I Don't Like To Think About Things Like That. I Don't Need 12 Boats, Or Even The World's Largest Boat With A Crew Of 80. I'd Have To Take Care Of Them, To Worry About Them. I Get A Lot More Fun Out Of Life Without All The Bells And Whistles.
Fun
Real
Mean
I'm Sitting With Six And A Half Billion Dollars We're Going To Use To Close The Mars-wrigley Deal On October 6. I've Got To Hand Over That Six And A Half Billion On October 6. Now, I Have To Be Very Careful About Who I Leave It In Between Now And Then, Because They're Expecting That He Show Up.
Hands
Dollars
Sitting
Games Are Won By Players Who Focus On The Playing Field -- Not By Those Whose Eyes Are Glued To The Scoreboard.
Eye
Player
Games
Remember That The Stock Market Is Manic-depressive.
Investing
Remember
Depressive
With Each Investment You Make, You Should Have The Courage And The Conviction To Place At Least Ten Per Cent Of Your Net Worth In That Stock
Should Have
Investment
Conviction
Wild Swings In Share Prices Have More To Do With The "lemming- Like" Behaviour Of Institutional Investors Than With The Aggregate Returns Of The Company They Own.
Swings
Lemmings
Return
An Ounce Of Prevention Is Worth A Pound Of Cure Understated.
Prevention
Pounds
Cures
...i Will Give You Two Pieces Of Advice. Invest As Much In Yourself As You Can; You Are Your Own Best Asset By Far. Then Follow Your Passion; You Want To Be Really Excited To Get Out Of Bed Every Morning.
Morning
Passion
Two
If I Eat 2,700 Calories A Day, A Quarter Of That Is Coca-cola.
Coca Cola
Quarters
Calories
Never Depend On Single Income. Make Investment To Create A Second Source.
Inspirational
Success
Money
We Intend To Continue Our Practice Of Working Only With People Whom We Like And Admire. This Policy Not Only Maximizes Our Chances For Good Results, It Also Ensures Us An Extraordinarily Good Time.
Life
Practice
People
It Makes A Difference Who The Treasury Secretary Is.
Differences
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I Have A House That I Bought 55 Years Ago. It's Warm In The Winter; It's Cool In The Summer. It Has Everything I Wanted, Plus It Has All Kinds Of Good Memories. Like My Kids, I Have Good Thoughts About That. I Can't Imagine Living Any Better.
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The Range Of Derivatives Contracts Is Limited Only By The Imagination Of Man (or Sometimes, So It Seems, Madmen). Say You Want To Write A Contract Speculating On The Number Of Twins To Be Born In Nebraska In 2020. No Problem-at A Price, You Will Easily Find An Obliging Counterparty.
Business
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Whatever You Like To Do, Make It A Hobby And Whatever The World Likes To Do, Make It A Business.
Hobbies
World
Likes
Risk Comes From Not Knowing What You Are Doing So Wide Diversification Is Only Required When Investors Are Ignorant. You Only Have To Do A Very Few Things In Your Life So Long As You Don't Do Too Many Things Wrong.
Knowing
Long
Risk
We Don't Read Other People's Opinions. We Want To Get The Facts, And Then Think.
Thinking
People
Want
To Be Successful, You Should Concentrate On The World Of Companies, Not Arcane Accounting Mathematics.
Successful
World
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Wall Street Makes Its Money On Activity. You Make Your Money On Inactivity.
Wall
Streets
Inactivity
If You Look At The Forbes 400, They Are Paying A Lower Rate, Accounting Payroll Taxes, Than Their Secretary Or - Whomever Around Their Office.
Payroll Tax
Office
Looks
I Think Confidence Will Come Back.
Thinking
I Have A Wonderful Family. I Have A Job That I Love And Wonderful People Who Help Me With It. It Can't Get Any Better Than That.
Jobs
People
Helping
We Only Want To Link Up With People Whom We Like, Admire, And Trust. ... We Do Not Wish To Join With Managers Who Lack Admirable Qualities, No Matter How Attractive The Prospects Of Their Business. We've Never Succeeded In Making A Good Deal With A Bad Person.
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Wish
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It's A Nightmare To Administer Some Of This Sort Of Thing, But I Want To Tell The Shareholders Of Berkshire, To The Percent We Own Marketable Securities Or Things For Which There Are Market, Even If Those Markets - I Want To Tell Them What It's All About.
Want
Nightmare
Shareholders
I Think People - What People Want To Do Is Make [economy] Get Worse.
Thinking
People
Want
Cultivate Curiosity And Strive To Become A Little Wiser Every Day.
Curiosity
Littles
Strive
We're Paying Maybe 25 Percent Of The Income Tax, But The Payroll Tax Is Over A Third Of The Receipts Of The Federal Government. And They Don't Take That From Me On Capital Gains. They Don't Take That From Me On Dividends.
Government
Payroll Tax
Income
If You Don’t Feel Comfortable Making A Rough Estimate Of The Asset’s Future Earnings, Just Forget It And Move On. No One Has The Ability To Evaluate Every Investment Possibility. But Omniscience Isn’t Necessary; You Only Need To Understand The Actions You Undertake.
Moving
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Don't Invest In Pieces Of Papers (stocks), Invest In Great Businesses Underlying Them
Pieces
Paper
Great Business
In Fact, In My Adult Lifetime, I Don't Think I've Ever Seen People As Fearful Economically As They Are Right Now.
Thinking
People
Adults
I'm Happy When I Can Spend Every Day Doing The Things That I Like To Do. That's My Luxury.
Luxury
I Can
We Simply Attempt To Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy And To Be Greedy Only When Others Are Fearful.
Success
Money
Fear
If The World Couldn't See Your Results, Would You Rather Be Thought Of As The World's Greatest Investor But In Reality Have The World's Worst Record? Or Be Thought Of As The World's Worst Investor When You Were Actually The Best?
Reality
Records
World
First Come The Innovators, Then Come The Imitators, Then Come The Idiots.
Investing
Firsts
Idiot
I Think That Both Parties Should Declare The Debt Limit As A Political Weapon Of Mass Destruction Which Can't Be Used. I Mean, It Is Silly To Have A Country That Has 237 Years Building Up Its Reputation And Then Have People Threaten To Tear It Down Because They're Not Getting Some Other Matter.
Country
Silly
Party
If You Expect To Continue To Purchase Stocks Throughout Your Life, You Should Welcome Price Declines As A Way To Add Stocks More Cheaply To Your Portfolio.
Add
Investing
Way
Every Company That Has An Economist Working For Him Has One Employee Too Many.
Employee
Economist
Company
Money Will Always Flow Toward Opportunity, And There Is An Abundance Of That In America.
Opportunity
America
Flow
The Dumbest Reason In The World To Buy A Stock Is Because It's Going Up.
World
Reason
In The Search [of A Deal], We Adopt The Same Attitude One Might Find Appropriate In Looking For A Spouse: It Pays To Be Active, Interested, And Open-minded, But It Does Not Pay To Be In A Hurry.
Attitude
Doe
Might
In A Commodity Business, It's Very Hard To Be Smarter Than Your Dumbest Competitor.
Investing
Commodity
Competitors
I Spend Twelve Hours A Week - A Little Over 10% Of My Waking Hours - Playing The Game. Now I Am Trying To Figure Out How To Get By On Less Sleep In Order To Fit In A Few More Hands.
Sleep
Hands
Order
Cash Combined With Courage In A Time Of Crisis Is Priceless.
Intelligent
Investing
Cash
You Can Be Sure That Over The Next 10 Years, You'll See Something That You Did Not Think Was Possible.
Thinking
Years
Investing
Inactivity Strikes Us As Intelligent Behavior.
Intelligent
Investing
Behavior
We Have To Live With The Rest Of The World. And It's A Mistake, In My View. Trade Has Generally Developed In This Country. We Actually Export 12 Or 13 Percent Of Our Gdp. It Was Only 5 Percent In 1970. But It Benefits Us. It Benefits The Rest Of The World. It Doesn't Benefit The Steelworker Maybe In Ohio. And That's The Problem That Has To Be Addressed, Because When You Have Something That's Good For Society, But Terribly Harmful For Given Individuals, We Have Got To Make Sure Those Individuals Are Taken Care Of.
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Mistake
Taken
Asset Values And Earning Power Are The Dominant Factors Affecting The Valuation Of A Controlling Interest In A Business. Market Price, Which Governs Valuation Of Minority Interest Positions, Is Of Little Or No Importance In Valuing A Controlling Interest.
Minorities
Littles
Earning
It's Quite Clear That Stocks Are Cheaper Than Bonds. I Can't Imagine Anybody Having Bonds In Their Portfolio When They Can Own Equities, A Diversified Group Of Equities. But People Do Because They, The Lack Of Confidence. But That's What Makes For The Attractive Prices. If They Had Their Confidence Back, They Wouldn't Be Selling At These Prices. And Believe Me, It Will Come Back Over Time.
Believe
People
Portfolios
Investing Is Not As Tough As Being A Top-notch Bridge Player. All It Takes Is The Ability To See Things As They Really Are.
Player
Bridges
Investing
How Do You Beat Bobby Fischer? You Play Him At Any Game But Chess. I Try To Stay In Games Where I Have An Edge.
Games
Play
Trying
Investors, Of Course, Can, By Their Own Behavior Make Stock Ownership Highly Risky. And Many Do. Active Trading, Attempts To "time" Market Movements, Inadequate Diversification, The Payment Of High And Unnecessary Fees To Managers And Advisors, And The Use Of Borrowed Money Can Destroy The Decent Returns That A Life-long Owner Of Equities Would Otherwise Enjoy. Indeed, Borrowed Money Has No Place In The Investor's Tool Kit.
Long
Tools
Use
Turnarounds Seldom Turn.
Investing
Turnaround
Turns
You Can't Help Some Increase From This Point. I Don't Want Any Viewer To Go Away Think A Magic Wand Exists In Congress. So They're Going To See Some More Bad News. But If We Do This, We're Doing The Right Thing.
Thinking
Magic
Going Away
Nothing Sedates Rationality Like Large Doses Of Effortless Money.
Investing Money
Buffets
Rationality
It Is Impossible To Unsign A Contract, So Do All Your Thinking Before You Sign.
Thinking
Impossible
Contracts
It's Just That I Landed Up In A Terrific Capitalist System. One That Pays People Who Allocate Capital Extraordinarily Well. Intrinsically, I'm Not Worth As Much As Somebody Who Invents Something That Could Improves People's Life, Or Health Or Whatever.
People
Pay
Wells
Never Give Up Searching For The Job That You're Passionate About.
Jobs
Giving Up
Doing What You Love
I Have Never Been Able To Understand Why The Tax Comes As Such A Body Blow To Many People Since The Rate On Long-term Capital Gain Is Lower Than On Most Likes Of Endeavor (tax Policy Indicated Digging Ditches Is Regarded As Socially Less Desirable Than Shuffling Stock Certificates).
Blow
Long
People
Confidence In Markets And In Institutions, It's A Lot Like Oxygen. When You Have It, You Don't Even Think About It. It's Indispensable. You Can Go Years Without Thinking About It. When It's Gone For Five Minutes, It's The Only Thing To Think About.
Thinking
Years
Oxygen
Do Not Put All Your Eggs In One Basket.
Easter
Eggs
Investment Success
I Mean, They Were Getting The Mortgage Of Some Guy In Omaha, You Know, Securitized A Couple Of Times. I Mean He Had All These - They Had All These Types From Wall Street, You Know, And They Had Advanced Degrees, And They Look Very Alert, And They Came With These - They Came With These Things That Said Gamma And Alpha And Sigma And All That. And All I Can Say Is Beware Of Geeks, You Know, Bearing Formulas. They've Heard That In Europe.
Wall
Couple
Mean
In The Financial Markets I Find It Easy To Predict What Will Happen And Very Difficult To Predict When It Will Happen. I Think That Things Were Clear During The Bubble As To What Would Happen Eventually.
Thinking
Financial
Easy
You Don't Have To Be A Genius To Invest Well
Genius
Wells
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.
Business
Insightful
Causes
If You're In A Card Game And You Can't Figure Out Who The Patsy Is, You're It.
Games
Cards
Figures
The Key To Success Is Emotional Stability.
Emotional
Keys
Key To Success
Derivatives Are Financial Weapons Of Mass Destruction.
Mass Destruction
Investing
Weapons
This Country Is Going - Be Living Better Ten Years From Now Than It Is Now. It Will Be Living Better In 20 Years From Now Than Ten Years From Now. The Ingredients That Made This Country, You Know, The Miracle Of The World - I Mean We Had A Seven For One Improvement In The Average American Standard Of Living In The 20th Century.
Country
Mean
Average
If You've Been Playing Poker For Half An Hour And You Still Don't Know Who The Patsy Is, You're The Patsy.
Half
Buffets
Hours
The Noah Rule: Predicting Rain Doesn't Count; Building Arks Does.
Rain
Ark
Doe
In Other Words, The Percentage Change In Book Value In Any Given Year Is Likely To Be Reasonably Close To That Year's Change In Intrinsic Value.
Book
Years
Percentages
Never Invest In A Business You Can't Understand
Business
Investing
Buffets
It's Almost Impossible To Overpay The Truly Extraordinary Ceo... But The Species Is Rare.
Impossible
Ceo
Species
It's Class Warfare, My Class Is Winning, But They Shouldn't Be.
Helping Others
Winning
Class
I’ve Worked In An Economy That Rewards Someone Who Saves The Lives Of Others On A Battlefield With A Medal, Rewards A Great Teacher With Thank-you Notes From Parents, But Rewards Those Who Can Detect The Mispricing Of Securities With Sums Reaching Into The Billions.
Teacher
Fate
Long
We Will Continue To Ignore Political And Economic Forecasts, Which Are An Expensive Distraction For Many Investors And Businessmen. Thirty Years Ago, No One Could Have Foreseen The Huge Expansion Of The Vietnam War, Wage And Price Controls, Two Oil Shocks, The Resignation Of A President, The Dissolution Of The Soviet Union, A One-day Drop In The Dow Of 508 Points, Or Treasury Bill Yields Fluctuating Between 2.8% And 17.4%.
War
Yield
Years
When 40 Billion Of Treasury Bills Are Sold Like, Seven Day Treasury Bills, At A Yield Of 1/20th Of One Percent, That Means The Whole Country Is Basically At The Point Virtually, Or A Lot Of The Country Is At The Point Of Putting The Money Under The Mattress.
Country
Mean
Yield
One Observer Commenting On Security Analysts Over Forty Stated: "they Know Too Many Things That Are No Longer True." As Long As I Am "on Stage", Publishing A Regular Record And Assuming Responsibility For Management Of What Amounts To Virtually 100% Of The Net Worth Of Many Partners, I Will Never Be Able To Put Sustained Effort Into Any Non-bpl Activity. If I Am Going To Participate Publicly. I Can't Help Being Competitive. I Know I Don't Want To Be Totally Occupied With Out-pacing An Investment Rabbit All My Life. The Only Way To Slow Down Is To Stop.
Responsibility
Long
Effort
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.
Money
Business
Dollars
I Knew A Lot About What I Did When I Was 20. I Had Read A Lot, And I Aspired To Learn Everything I Could About The Subject.
Investing
Subjects
If You Want A Government That's Going To Do The Things We Ask Our Government To Do, You've Got To Get It From Somebody.
Government
Want
Asks
I've Made Money Over The Years By Buying Into Good Companies, Run By Good People, At Attractive Prices. And I Don't Try And Make It Out Of Buying Into The Market At One Point And Selling At Another Point.
Running
Years
People
Making Money Isn't The Backbone Of Our Guiding Purpose; Making Money Is The By-product Of Our Guiding Purpose. If You're Doing Something You Love, You're More Likely To Put Your All Into It, And That Generally Equates To Making Money
Business
Love You
Purpose
The Typical Large Company Has A Compensation Committee, They Don't Look For Dobermans On That Committee, They Look For Chihuahuas.
Typical
Looks
Dobermans
Let Only Individuals Contribute - With Sensible Limits Per Election. Otherwise, We Are Well On Our Way To Ensuring That A Government Of The Moneyed, By The Moneyed, And For The Moneyed Shall Not Perish From The Earth.
Government
Earth
Way
I Have Always Cautioned Partners That I Considered Three Years A Minimum In Determining Whether We Were "performing".
Years
Three
Partners
You Get In A Lot Of Trouble When You Start Putting Fictitious Numbers.
Numbers
Trouble
In The End We Must Have People To Match Our Principles, Not The Reverse.
People
Principles
Ends
What Could Be More Advantageous In An Intellectual Contest - Whether It Be Chess, Bridge, Or Stock Selection - Than To Have Opponents Who Have Been Taught That Thinking Is A Waste Of Energy?
Thinking
Bridges
Intellectual
Wide Diversification Is Only Required When Investors Do Not Understand What They Are Doing.
Success
Business
Intelligent
Benign Neglect, Bordering On Sloth, Remains The Hallmark Of Our Investment Process.
Sloth
Investment
Hallmark
All I Have To Do Is Think And Not Be Influenced By Others.
Thinking
A Fool And His Money Are Soon Invited Everywhere.
Money
Italian
Taxes Funny
They Say The Chains Of Habit Are Too Light To Be Felt Until They Are Too Heavy To Be Broken. The Chains You Put Around Yourself Now Have Enormous Consequences As You Go Through Life.
Business
Light
Broken
We Will Prosper Or Suffer In Controlled Investments In Relation To The Operating Performances Of Our Businesses - We Will Not Attempt To Profit By Playing Various Games In The Securities Markets.
Games
Suffering
Investment
We Have A Country Where I Don't Know Whether It's A Million Households A Year Or More, But Good Form.
Country
Years
Form
I Would Push Purchasing Power - You Push Out $1,000 Of Purchasing To Those People, It's Going To Get - It's Going To Get Spent. And It Needs To Be Spent. They Need It. And It Should Come, To Some Extent, From Guys Like Me.
People
Guy
Needs
A Pin Lies In Wait For Every Bubble And When The Two Eventually Meet, A New Wave Of Investors Learns Some Very Old Lessons.
Lying
Two
Waiting
It's Very Important That The Determination Of The Us Congress To Do What Is Is Needed Be Made Evident This Week And By The Actions Of Most Of The Members. I Mean, You're Not Going To Get Total Assent.
Determination
Mean
Important
I Do Not Like Debt And Do Not Like To Invest In Companies That Have Too Much Debt, Particularly Long-term Debt. With Long-term Debt, Increases In Interest Rates Can Drastically Affect Company Profits And Make Future Cash Flows Less Predictable.
Cash Flow
Long
Too Much
The Managers At Fault Periodically Report On The Lesson They Have Learned From The Latest Disappointment. They Then Usually Seek Out Future Lessons.
Disappointment
Lessons
Faults
Only Buy Something That You'd Be Perfectly Happy To Hold If The Market Shut Down For 10 Years.
Inspirational
Success
Money
It Irritates The Hell Out Of Me But You Can't Buy Love.
Hell
I'd Rather Have A $10 Million Business Making 15 Per Cent Than A $100 Million Business Making 5 Per Cent.
Cents
Millions
Intensity Is The Price Of Excellence.
Excellence
Intensity
Emotional Makeup Is More Important Than Technical Skill
Makeup
Emotional
Skills
Do Not Save What Is Left After Spending, But Spend What Is Left After Saving.
Inspirational
Life
Money
I Can Do Anything I Want, Basically, As Long As It Doesn't Involve Athletic Ability, Or Something Like That.
Long
Athletic
Ability
The Ideal Business Is One That Earns Very High Returns On Capital And That Keeps Using Lots Of Capital At Those High Returns. That Becomes A Compounding Machine.
Machines
Investing
Return
I View Derivatives As Time Bombs, Both For The Parties That Deal In Them And The Economic System.
Party
Views
Bombs
I Like To Go For Cinches. I Like To Shoot Fish In A Barrel. But I Like To Do It After The Water Has Run Out.
Running
Business
Water
... It's Important To Have The Right Monetary Policy. It's Important For, To Have The Right Fiscal Policy. But It's Nowhere Near As Important As Just The Normal Regenerative Capacity Of American Capitalism.
Important
Fiscal Policy
Investing
It's Easier To Create Money Than To Spend It.
Easier
All Day You Wait For The Pitch You Like; Then When The Fielders Are Asleep, You Step Up And Hit It.
Waiting
Steps
Step Up
An Investor Should Act As Though He Had A Lifetime Decision Card With Just Twenty Punches On It.
Decision
Twenties
Cards
When The President Of The United States Goes Out At, You Know, 8:00 O'clock In The Morning And Then His Own Party Votes Gets Him 2 To 1 In The House, You Know That Somehow A Message Isn't Getting Out. It Takes Real Leadership.
Morning
Real
Party
I Am Not In The Business Of Predicting General Stock Market Of Business Fluctuations. If You Think I Can Do This, Or Think It Is Essential To An Investment Program, You Should Not Be In The Partnership.
Thinking
Essentials
Investment
Our Stay-put Behavior Reflects Our View That The Stock Market Serves As A Relocation Center At Which Money Is Moved From The Active To The Patient.
Views
Investing
Patient
The True Investor Welcomes Volatility ... A Wildly Fluctuating Market Means That Irrationally Low Prices Will Periodically Be Attached To Solid Businesses.
Mean
Lows
Volatility
A Diamond Cannot Be Polished Without Friction, Nor A Person Perfected Without Trials. Someone Is Enjoying Shade Today Because Someone Planted A Tree A Long Time Ago.
Long
Tree
Shade
Success In Investing Doesn’t Correlate With I.q. Once You Are Above The Level Of 25; Once You Have Ordinary Intelligence, What You Need Is The Temperament To Control The Urges That Get Other People Into Trouble In Investing.
People
Intelligence
Ordinary
The Optimum Portfolio Depends On The Various Expectations Of Choices Available And The Degree Of Variance In Performance Which Is Tolerable. The Greater The Number Of Selections, The Less Will Be The Average Year-to-year Variation In Actual Versus Expected Results. Also, The Lower Will Be The Expected Results, Assuming Different Choices Have Different Expectations Of Performance.
Average
Years
Numbers
Returns Decrease As Motion Increases.
Return
Increase
Decrease
When Investing, Pessimism Is Your Friend, Euphoria The Enemy.
Enemy
Investing
Financial
Never Be Afraid To Ask For Too Much When Selling Or Offer Too Little When Buying.
Littles
Too Much
Buying
The Key To Investing Is Not Assessing How Much An Industry Is Going To Affect Society, Or How Much It Will Grow, But Rather Determining The Competitive Advantage Of Any Given Company And, Above All, The Durability Of That Advantage.
Keys
Investing
Durability
The U.s. Treasury Has Got Borrowing Costs Like Nobody Else Has.
Cost
Treasury
Borrowing
If You Want Your Business To Survive For 100 Years, You've Got To Make It Through Every Single Day For 100 Years. It's Not Enough To Do It 99.9% Of The Time.
Business
Years
Want
Possessing A Powerful Worldwide Brand Is Essential For Sustained Success.
Powerful
Essentials
Brands
If You Have A Harem Of 40 Women, You Never Get To Know Any Of Them Very Well.
Wells
Harem
Knows
Investment Decision Should Be Made On The Basis Of The Most Probable Compounding Of After-tax Net Worth With Minimum Risk.
Decision
Risk
Investment
You Are Neither Right Nor Wrong Because The Crowd Disagrees With You.
Life
Generosity
Crowds
It Is Madness To Risk Losing What You Need In Pursuing What You Simply Desire.
Risk
Desire
Needs
The One Piece Of Advice I Can Give You Is, Do What Turns You On. Do Something That If You Had All The Money In The World, You’d Still Be Doing It. You’ve Got To Have A Reason To Jump Out Of Bed In The Morning.
Morning
Giving
Advice
When Berkshire Hathaway Laid Out Three Billion Dollars For Ge Today, We Didn't Spend It, We Invested It. When The Federal Government Buys The Mortgages, They're Not Spending It, They're Investing It. Now, They're Investing It In Distress Type Assets But They're Buying Them At Distress Prices If They Buy Them At Market. It's The Kind Of Stuff I Love To Do. I Just Don't Have 700 Million. Maybe We Could Go In It Together.
Government
Together
Three
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.
Believe
Use
Tables
Always Invest For The Long Term.
Long
Investing
Term
Take The High Road; It's Far Less Crowded.
Taking The High Road
High Road
Crowded
Our Approach Is Very Much Profiting From Lack Of Change Rather Than From Change. With Wrigley Chewing Gum, It's The Lack Of Change That Appeals To Me. I Don't Think It Is Going To Be Hurt By The Internet. That's The Kind Of Business I Like.
Hurt
Business
Thinking
If You Understood A Business Perfectly And The Future Of The Business, You Need Very Little In The Way Of A Margin Of Safety.
Safety
Needs
Littles
A Newspaper That Reduces Its Coverage Of The News Important To Its Community Is Certain To Reduce Its Readership As Well
Community
Important
News
Would Your Reply Possibly Be This? Well, It All Depends On What My Tax Rate Will Be On The Gain You're Saying We're Going To Make. If The Taxes Are Too High, I Would Rather Leave The Money In My Savings Account, Earning A Quarter Of 1 Percent. Only In Grover Norquist's Imagination Does Such A Response Exist.
Business
Imagination
Earning
The Approach And Strategies Are Very Similar In That You Gather All The Information You Can And Then Keep Adding To That Base Of Information As Things Develop. You Do Whatever The Probabilities Indicated Based On The Knowledge That You Have At That Time, But You Are Always Willing To Modify Your Behaviour Or Your Approach As You Get New Information. In Bridge, You Behave In A Way That Gets The Best From Your Partner. And In Business, You Behave In The Way That Gets The Best From Your Managers And Your Employees.
Bridges
Behaviour
Information
The Truth Is, Everything That Has Happened In My Life... That I Thought Was A Crushing Event At The Time, Has Turned Out For The Better.
Crush
Events
Truth Is
I Tell College Students, When You Get To Be My Age You Will Be Successful If The People Who You Hope To Have Love You, Do Love You.
Love You
Successful
College
Inflation Could Be A Very - Is A Likely Consequence Out Of What's Going On Now.
Inflation
Consequence
Our Goal Is To Find An Outstanding Business At A Sensible Price, Not A Mediocre Business At A Bargain Price.
Goal
Outstanding
Mediocre
You're Neither Right Nor Wrong Because Other People Agree With You. You're Right Because Your Facts Are Right And Your Reasoning Is Right - That's The Only Thing That Makes You Right. And If Your Facts And Reasoning Are Right, You Don't Have To Worry About Anybody Else.
People
Worry
Investing
I Lose Confidence In Other People, All Kinds Of Institutions.
People
Kind
Institutions
Government Can't Deliver A Free Lunch To The Country As A Whole. It Can, However, Determine Who Pays For Lunch. And Last Week The Senate Handed The Bill To The Wrong Party... The Poor And Middle Class.
Country
Party
Class
The Plan Itself Is Opportunism. There Is No Plan Before That.
Plans
Opportunism
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.
Two
Long
Waiting
I Have No Idea On Timing. It’s Easier To Tell What Will Happen Than When It Will Happen. I Would Say That What Is Going On In Terms Of Trade Policy Is Going To Have Very Important Consequences.
Ideas
Important
Investing
Shares Are Not Mere Pieces Of Paper. They Represent Part Ownership Of A Business. So, When Contemplating An Investment, Think Like A Prospective Owner.
Thinking
Pieces
Paper
It Is More Important To Say "no" To An Opportunity, Than To Say "yes".
Opportunity
Important
Investing
The Rich Are Always Going To Say That, You Know, Just Give Us More Money And We'll Go Out And Spend More And Then It Will All Trickle Down To The Rest Of You. But That Has Not Worked The Last 10 Years, And I Hope The American Public Is Catching On.
Hope
Money
Catching On
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.
Business
Investing Money
Investment Success
Someone's Sitting In The Shade Today Because Someone Planted A Tree A Long Time Ago. The Person Sitting In The Shade Now Should Be Grateful For The Person Who Planted And Tended That Tree. That Includes All Those Benefactors Of Humanity Throughout History That Created, Invented, Financed, Produced, Maintained And Improved All That We Enjoy Today.
Gratitude
Grateful
Long
If You Aren't Willing To Own A Stock For Ten Years, Don't Even Think About Owning It For Ten Minutes. Put Together A Portfolio Of Companies Whose Aggregate Earnings March Upward Over The Years, And So Also Will The Portfolio's Market Value.
Thinking
Years
Together
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.
Thinking
Two
Views
You Have To Turn Over A Lot Of Rocks To Find Those Little Anomalies. You Have To Find The Companies That Are Off The Map - Way Off The Map.
Rocks
Anomalies
Maps
You Don't Need To Have Extraordinary Effort To Achieve Extraordinary Results. You Just Need To Do The Ordinary, Everyday Things Exceptionally Well.
Everyday Things
Effort
Ordinary
Only When The Tide Goes Out Do You Discover Who's Been Swimming Naked.
Funny
Motivation
Business
We've Had Public Companies In The Past In That Business And They Bleed. We've Got A Lot More Blood Than They Do.
Past
Blood
Company
I Make No Effort To Predict The Course Of General Business Or The Stock Market. Period. However, Currently There Are Practices Snowballing In The Security Markets And Business World Which, While Devoid Of Short Term Predictive Value, Bother Me As To Possible Long Term Consequences.
Practice
Long
Effort
The Best Thing That Happens To Us Is When A Great Company Gets Into Temporary Trouble...we Want To Buy Them When They're On The Operating Table.
Business
Investing Money
Tables
Activity Is The Enemy Of Investment Returns.
Enemy
Investing
Return
You Should Invest In A Business That Even A Fool Can Run, Because Someday A Fool Will.
Running
Fool
Someday
Buy Companies With Strong Histories Of Profitability And With A Dominant Business Franchise.
Strong
Investing
Company
I Mean, You Know, You're Not Going To Change The Human Animal. And The Human Animal Really Doesn't Get A Lot Smarter.
Mean
Animal
Humans
The Only Question Is Whether You’re Going To Do It Today Or Tomorrow. If You Keep Saying You’re Going To Do It Tomorrow, You’ll Never Do It. You Have To Get On It Today.
Today
Tomorrow
Ifs
When The Brothel Burns Down, Even The Pretty Girls Have To Run Out.
Girl
Running
Investing
In The Insurance Business, There Is No Statute Of Limitation On Stupidity.
Stupidity
Statutes
Limitation
Like I Say, I Don't Think It'll Be Done Perfectly. Maybe We'll End Up With A Little Bit Better [economy] System.
Thinking
Done
Littles
A Contrarian Approach Is Just As Foolish As A Follow-the-crowd Strategy. What's Required Is Thinking Rather Than Polling.
Thinking
Crowds
Strategy
If Knowing History Made You Rich, Librarians Would Be Billionaires.
Knowing
Would Be
Rich
What Motivates Most Gold Purchasers Is Their Belief That The Ranks Of The Fearful Will Grow ... As 'bandwagon' Investors Join Any Party, They Create Their Own Truth - For A While.
Party
Gold
Belief
I Have No Use Whatsoever For Projections Or Forecasts. They Create An Illusion Of Apparent Precision. The More Meticulous They Are, The More Concerned You Should Be. We Never Look At Projections, But We Care Very Much About, And Look Very Deeply At, Track Records. If A Company Has A Lousy Track Record, But A Very Bright Future, We Will Miss The Opportunity.
Opportunity
Track
Missing
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Antonin Scalia
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Roy Moore
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Category
Information