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It Makes No Difference To A Widow With Her Savings In A 5 Percent Passbook Account Whether She Pays 100 Percent Income Tax On Her Interest Income During A Period Of Zero Inflation Or Pays No Income Tax During Years Of 5 Percent Inflation. Either Way, She Is 'taxed' In A Manner That Leaves Her No Real Income Whatsoever. Any Money She Spends Comes Right Out Of Capital. She Would Find Outrageous A 100 Percent Income Tax But Doesn't Seem To Notice That 5 Percent Inflation Is The Economic Equivalent.

-Warren Buffett

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It Makes No Difference

Warren Buffett

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It Makes No Difference To A Widow With Her Savings In A 5 Percent Passbook Account Whether She Pays 100 Percent Income Tax On Her Interest Income During A Period Of Zero Inflation Or Pays No Income Tax During Years Of 5 Percent Inflation. Either Way, She Is 'taxed' In A Manner That Leaves Her No Real Income Whatsoever. Any Money She Spends Comes Right Out Of Capital. She Would Find Outrageous A 100 Percent Income Tax But Doesn't Seem To Notice That 5 Percent Inflation Is The Economic Equivalent.

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When I Take A Look At A Company's Annual Report, If I Don't Understand It, They Don't Want Me To Understand It.

The Extraordinary Business Does Not Require Good Management.

Wall Street Is The Only Place That People Ride To In A Rolls Royce To Get Advice From Those Who Take The Subway.

Investing Money

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Would You Rather Be The World's Greatest Lover, But Have Everyone Think You're The World's Worst Lover? Or Would You Rather Be The World's Worst Lover But Have Everyone Think You're The World's Greatest Lover? Now, That's An Interesting Question.

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Intrinsic Value

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The Key To Life Is To Figure Out Who To Be The Batboy For.

Banking Is Very Good Business If You Don't Do Anything Dumb.

Continually Challenge And Be Willing To Amend Your Best Loved Ideas.

With A Wonderful Business, You Can Figure Out What Will Happen; You Can't Figure Out When It Will Happen. You Don't Want To Focus On When, You Want To Focus On What. If You're Right About What, You Don't Have To Worry About When

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.

Investing Money

Investment Success

Does The Business Have A Consistent Operating History?

The 19th Century Belonged To England, The 20th Century Belonged To The U.s., And The 21st Century Belongs To China. Invest Accordingly.

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.'

I Would Say The Biggest Single Cause Was We Had An Incredible Residential Real Estate Bubble.

The Fundamental Basis Of Above-average Performance In The Long Run Is Sustainable Competitive Advantage.

Does Management Resist The Institutional Imperative?

I Think The Most Important Factor In Getting Out Of The Recession Actually Is Just The Regenerative Capacity Of - Of American Capitalism.

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.

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Airline Business

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I Think The Congress Will Do The Right Thing. I Think That They've - You Know, They Got Into Certain Arguments And They Start Worrying About Assessing Blame, And There Is A Little Demagoguery, But In The End, Something This Important, They'll Do The Right Thing. So This Really Is An Economic Pearl Harbor. That Sounds Melodramatic, But I've Never Used That Phrase Before. And This Really Is One.

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.

Sound Investing Can Make You Very Wealthy If You're Not In Too Big A Hurry

The Only Time To Buy These Is On A Day With No 'y' In It.

Part Of Making Good Decisions In Business Is Recognizing The Poor Decisions You've Made And Why They Were Poor. I've Made Lots Of Mistakes. I'm Going To Make More. It's The Name Of The Game. You Don't Want To Expect Perfection In Yourself. You Want To Strive To Do Your Best. It's Too Demanding To Expect Perfection In Yourself.

I'm Happy When I Can Spend Every Day Doing The Things That I Like To Do. That's My Luxury.

We Don't Get Paid For Being Busy, We Get Paid For Being Right.

Like I Say, I Don't Think It'll Be Done Perfectly. Maybe We'll End Up With A Little Bit Better [economy] System.

We Do Not View The Company Itself As The Ultimate Owner Of Our Business Assets But Instead View The Company As A Conduit Through Which Our Shareholders Own Assets.

As Far As You Are Concerned, The Stock Market Does Not Exist. Ignore It.

Most People Get Interested In Stocks When Everyone Else Is. The Time To Get Interested Is When No One Else Is. You Can't Buy What Is Popular And Do Well.

Investing Your Time

I Don't Think It Would Be Crazy To Have A Model Or An Entity Model On The Reconstruction Finance Corp.

When It's Raining Gold, Reach For A Bucket, Not A Thimble.

Our Goal Is To Find An Outstanding Business At A Sensible Price, Not A Mediocre Business At A Bargain Price.

Managers And Investors Alike Must Understand That Accounting Numbers Are The Beginning, Not The End, Of Business Valuation.

A Pack Of Lemmings Looks Like A Group Of Rugged Individualists Compared With Wall Street When It Gets A Concept In Its Teeth.

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Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Marie De France

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