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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.

-Warren Buffett

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On His Giving Pledge

Warren Buffett

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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.

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You Get What I Call The Natural Progression, The Three Is. The Innovators, The Imitators, And The Idiots.

Rule No.1: Never Lose Money. Rule No.2: Never Forget Rule No.1.

Unless Your Answers Are Clearly Better, Copy The Answers Of Your Betters.

I View Derivatives As Time Bombs, Both For The Parties That Deal In Them And The Economic System.

Truly Conservative Actions Arise From Intelligent Hypotheses, Correct Facts And Sound Reasoning.

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.

Just Look At That Forbes 400. Takes A Billion Three To Get On The Forbes 400 This Year. And The Aggregate Wealth Is Just Staggering. And Those People Are Paying Less Percentage Of Their Total Income To The Federal Government Than Their Receptionists Are. [...] I'll Bet A Million Dollars Against Any Member Of The Forbes 400 Who Challenges - Me That The Average For The Forbes 400 Will Be Less Than The Average Of Their Receptionists.

Mark Zuckerberg Will Be A Hero To Many Young Entrepreneurs 20 Years From Now. Bill Gates Will Be A Hero To Others, And They Will Look To Those [people] Like I Read Books When I Was In My Teens About Rockefeller Or Carnegie.

Young Entrepreneurs

The Smarter The Journalists Are, The Better Off Society Is. For To A Degree, People Read The Press To Inform Themselves - And The Better The Teacher, The Better The Student Body.

Buy A Cross Section Of American Industry, And If A Cross Section Of American Industry Doesn't Work, Certainly Trying To Pick The Little Beauties Here And There Isn't Going To Work Either.

I Think Any Time You Couple The Term "wall Street" With "bailout" Or Something Like That, You Know - I Don't Like What's Going On In Wall Street.

A Pin Lies In Wait For Every Bubble And When The Two Eventually Meet, A New Wave Of Investors Learns Some Very Old Lessons.

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.

Diversification May Preserve Wealth, But Concentration Builds Wealth.

Concentration Of Wealth

Time Is The Friend Of The Wonderful Company, The Enemy Of The Mediocre.

We Would Do Best In A Market Where Everyone Acted Foolishly.

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.

Occasionally, A Man Must Rise Above Principles.

You Could Be Somewhere Where The Mail Was Delayed Three Weeks And Do Just Fine Investing.

Charlie And I Have A Number Of Filters That Things Have To Get Through Before We'll Think About Them.

If You're Extremely Rich, And You Have Got Children, My Theory Was, You Give Them Enough So They Can Do Anything, But Not Enough So They Can Do Nothing.

We Have Usually Made Our Best Purchases When Apprehensions About Some Macro Event Were At A Peak. Fear Is The Foe Of The Faddist, But The Friend Of The Fundamentalist.

I Put Heavy Weight On Certainty. It's Not Risky To Buy Securities At A Fraction Of What They're Worth.

For Some Reason People Take Their Cues From Price Action Rather Than From Values. Price Is What You Pay. Value Is What You Get.

We're Perfectly Willing To Trade Away A Big Payoff For A Certain Payoff.

You Will Be Right, Over The Course Of Many Transactions, If Your Hypotheses Are Correct, Your Facts Are Correct, And Your Reasoning Is Correct. True Conservatism Is Only Possible Through Knowledge And Reason.

I Think The Fdic Was One Of The Great Inventions Of The American.

Great Inventions

We've Used Derivatives For Many, Many Years. I Don't Think Derivatives Are Evil, Per Se, I Think They Are Dangerous.

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.

Successful Investing Takes Time, Discipline And Patience. No Matter How Great The Talent Or Effort, Some Things Just Take Time: You Can't Produce A Baby In One Month By Getting Nine Women Pregnant.

Investing Money

The Rich Invest In Time, The Poor Invest In Money.

Words Of Wisdom

If You Get To My Age In Life And Nobody Thinks Well Of You, I Don't Care How Big Your Bank Account Is, Your Life Is A Disaster.

Never Do Anything In Life If You Would Be Ashamed Of Seeing It Printed On The Front Page Of Your Hometown Newspaper For Your Friends And Family To See.

Family And Friends

... 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.

The Major Asset In This Category Is Gold, Currently A Huge Favorite Of Investors Who Fear Almost All Other Assets, Especially Paper Money (of Whose Value, As Noted, They Are Right To Be Fearful). Gold, However, Has Two Significant Shortcomings, Being Neither Of Much Use Nor Procreative. True, Gold Has Some Industrial And Decorative Utility, But The Demand For These Purposes Is Both Limited And Incapable Of Soaking Up New Production. Meanwhile, If You Own One Ounce Of Gold For An Eternity, You Will Still Own One Ounce At Its End.

The Thing To Do Is To Keep Your Mind When The World Around You Is Losing Theirs.

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.

We Are In Effect Making A - To Some Extent, Making A Choice Between Future Inflation And Getting Our - Getting Off The Floor. And We're Likely - We're Likely To Have More Inflation In The Future As A Consequence Of The Things We Do To Fight The Present Situation.

If You Do Smart Things And Use Leverage And Do One Wrong Thing Along The Way, It Could Wipe You Out, Because Anything Times Zero Is Zero. But It's Reinforcing When The People Around You Are Doing It Successfully, You're Doing It Successfully, And It's A Lot Like Cinderella At The Ball.

Market Price, While Used Exclusively To Value Our Investments In Minority Positions, Is Not A Relevant Factor When Applied To Our Controlling Interests.

To Invest Successfully, You Need Not Understand Beta, Efficient Markets, Modern Portfolio Theory, Option Pricing Or Emerging Markets. You May, In Fact, Be Better Off Knowing Nothing Of These. That, Of Course, Is Not The Prevailing View At Most Business Schools, Whose Finance Curriculum Tends To Be Dominated By Such Subjects. In Our View, Though, Investment Students Need Only Two Well-taught Courses - How To Value A Business, And How To Think About Market Prices.

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.

We've Actually Been Pretty Good On Exports. I Mean We Are Exporting 12% Of Our Gdp Now Roughly.

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

What We Learn From History Is That People Don't Learn From History.

Take The High Road; It's Far Less Crowded.

Taking The High Road

Investors Should Remember That Their Scorecard Is Not Computed Using Olympic-diving Methods: Degree-of-difficulty Doesn't Count. If You Are Right About A Business Whose Value Is Largely Dependent On A Single Key Factor That Is Both Easy To Understand And Enduring, The Payoff Is The Same As If You Had Correctly Analyzed An Investment Alternative Characterized By Many Constantly Shifting And Complex Variables.

Great Investment Opportunities Come Around When Excellent Companies Are Surrounded By Unusual Circumstances That Cause The Stock To Be Misappraised.

One’s Objective Should Be To Get It Right, Get It Quick, Get It Out And Get It Over. Your Problem Won’t Improve With Age.

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.

Knowing The Edge Of Your Competency Is Important. If You Think You Know More Than You Do, You Will Get In Trouble.

The Power Of Unconditional Love. I Mean, There Is No Power On Earth Like Unconditional Love.

Unconditional Love

The U.s. Treasury Has Got Borrowing Costs Like Nobody Else Has.

In My Opinion, The Entire Field Of Investment Management, Involving Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars, Would Be More Satisfactorily Conducted If Everyone Had A Good Yardstick For Measurement Of Ability And Sensibly Applied It.

An Ounce Of Prevention Is Worth A Pound Of Cure Understated.

Other Guys Read Playboy. I Read Annual Reports.

There Seems To Be Some Perverse Human Characteristic That Likes To Make Easy Things Difficult.

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.

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

In A Difficult Business, No Sooner Is One Problem Solved Than Another Surfaces - Never Is There Just One Cockroach In The Kitchen.

Focus Alone Is Not Enough; Putting In The Time To Commit Is Also Crucial To Achieve Success.

Although We Deal With Probabilities And Expectations, The Actual Results Can Deviate Substantially From Such Expectations, Particularly On A Short-term Basis.

You're Dealing With A Lot Of Silly People In The Marketplace; It's Like A Great Big Casino And Everyone Else Is Boozing. If You Can Stick With Pepsi, You Should Be Ok.

Investing Money

[people] Have Seen The Credit Market Seize Up. They're Worried About Money Market Funds, Although The Latest Proposition From Government Should Take Care Of That. They've Seen Eight Percent Of The Bank Deposits In The United States Get Moved Very Skillfully, I Might Say, Within The Last Couple Of Weeks From Institutions That They Thought Were Fine A Few Months Ago To Other Institutions. They Are Not Wrong To Be Worried.

The Capital Gains Tax Is 15 Percent Now. So I Sit There In My Office And I Make A Lot Of Money By Capital Gains, And I Pay 15 Percent, And I Pay No Payroll Tax On It.

I Think I Could Make You Fifty Percent A Year On One Million Dollars. No, I Know I Could. I Guarantee That.

Guarantees That

The Rest Of The World Really Likes Our Stuff Pretty Well. It's Just We Buy So Damn Much Of What They Produce.

Let Blockheads Read What Blockheads Wrote.

If You Can Eliminate The Government As A 39.6% Partner, Then You Will Be Much Better Off.

Do What You Would Do For Free, Having Passion For What You Do Is The Most Important Thing.

Passion For What You Do

The Big Question About How People Behave Is Whether They've Got An Inner Scorecard Or An Outer Scorecard. It Helps If You Can Be Satisfied With An Inner Scorecard.

There Is No Staff. I Make All The Investment Decisions And I Do All My Own Analysis.

In The End We Must Have People To Match Our Principles, Not The Reverse.

In One Way, I'm Sympathetic To The Institutional Reluctance To Face The Music. I'd Give A Lot To Mark My Weight To 'model' Rather Than To 'market.'

I Have Got This Letter Which Actually Goes Out The Day After I Die. It Has Already Been Written. And It Says That: "yesterday I Died". And Then It Says: "that's Bad News For Me, But It's Not Bad News For You, The Shareholders Of Berkshire". And Then I Go On And Explain What Is Going To Happen. I Know That Is One Time When They Will Be Really Interested In Hearing From Me.

As An Investor With Small Capital, One Should Prefer Businesses That Have High Returns On Capital And That Require Little Incremental Investment To Grow.

Over The Years, A Number Of Very Smart People Have Learned The Hard Way That A Long String Of Impressive Numbers Multiplied By A Single Zero Always Equals Zero.

Wide Diversification Is Only Required When Investors Do Not Understand What They Are Doing.

People Always Should Know Better. People Don't Get - They Don't Get Smarter About Things That Get As Basic As Greed.

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.

I Can't Promise Results, But I Can Promise A Common Destiny.

I Always Knew I Was Going To Be Rich. I Don't Think I Ever Doubted It For A Minute.

The Latter Qualification Brings To Mind A Fellow Who Applied For A Job And Stated He Had Twenty Years Of Experience-which Was Corrected By A Former Employer To Read "one Year's Experience-twenty Times.

In The Insurance Business, There Is No Statute Of Limitation On Stupidity.

I Just Think That - When A Country Needs More Income And We Do, We're Only Taking In 15 Percent Of Gdp, I Mean, That - That - When A Country Needs More Income, They Should Get It From The People That Have It.

When We Went Crazy, And We Did Go Crazy On Residential Real Estate, It Set Things In Motion That Just - The Dominoes Started Toppling.

I Mean, In Terms Of Alternatives, Some People Have Suggested For Example That Why Don't We - Why Isn't America Doing What Berkshire Hathaway Is Doing? Why Isn't That A Better Deal For America?

The Investor Of Today Does Not Profit From Yesterday's Growth.

Investing Money

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

When The Brothel Burns Down, Even The Pretty Girls Have To Run Out.

In Earlier Years, A Lesser Effort Produced Literally Dozens Of Comparable Opportunities. It Is Difficult To Be Objective About The Causes For Such Diminution Of One's Own Productivity. Three Factors That Seem Apparent Are: (1) A Somewhat Changed Market Environment; (2) Our Increased Size; And (3) Substantially More Competition.

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.

What You Really Want To Do In Investments Is Figure Out What's Important And Knowable. If It's Unimportant Or Unknowable You Forget About It.

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

Good Profits Simply Are Not Inconsistent With Good Behavior.

We Try To Exert A Ted Williams Kind Of Discipline. In His Book The Science Of Hitting, Ted Explains That He Carved The Strike Zone Into 77 Cells, Each The Size Of A Baseball. Swinging Only At Balls In His "best" Cell, He Knew, Would Allow Him To Bat .400; Reaching For Balls In His "worst" Spot, The Low Outside Corner Of The Strike Zone, Would Reduce Him To .230. In Other Words, Waiting For The Fat Pitch Would Mean A Trip To The Hall Of Fame; Swinging Indiscriminately Would Mean A Ticket To The Minors.

Always Associate Yourself With People Who Are Better Than You.

Over The Years, Charlie [munger, Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman] And I Have Observed Many Accounting-based Frauds Of Staggering Size. Few Of The Perpetrators Have Been Punished; Many Have Not Even Been Censured. It Has Been Far Safer To Steal Large Sums With Pen Than Small Sums With A Gun.

For Some Reason, People Take Their Cues From Price Action Rather Than From Values. What Doesn't Work Is When You Start Doing Things That You Don't Understand Or Because They Worked Last Week For Somebody Else. The Dumbest Reason In The World To Buy A Stock Is Because It's Going Up.

When You Combine Ignorance And Leverage, You Get Some Pretty Interesting Results.

Investing Money

We Will Reject Interesting Opportunities Rather Than Over-leverage Our Balance Sheet.

I Prefer Liquor Store Robbers With Hungry Kids To Companies That Locate Offshore To Avoid U.s. Taxes.

You Don't Need To Be A Rocket Scientist. Investing Is Not A Game Where The Guy With The 160 Iq Beats The Guy With 130 Iq.

Investment Success

Investing Is Forgoing Consumption Now In Order To Have The Ability To Consume More At A Later Date.

Writing A Check Separates A Commitment From A Conversation.

The Active Investors Will Have Their Returns Diminished By A Far Greater Percentage Than Will Their Inactive Brethren. That Means That The Passive Group - The "know-nothings" - Must Win.

Whatever You Like To Do, Make It A Hobby And Whatever The World Likes To Do, Make It A Business.

I Made My First Investment At Age Eleven. I Was Wasting My Life Up Until Then.

The Stockmarket Is A Semi-psychotic Creature Given To Extremes Of Elation And Despair.

I Have An 800 Freephone Number Now That I Call If I Get The Urge To Buy An Airline Stock. I Call At Two In The Morning And I Say: "my Name Is Warren And I'm An Aeroholic." And Then They Talk Me Down.

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

Managers That Always Promise To 'make The Numbers' Will At Some Point Be Tempted To Make Up The Numbers.

Buy Companies With Strong Histories Of Profitability And With A Dominant Business Franchise.

I Mean, If Pearl Harbor Came Along, You Could Have Said The Planning Was Wrong By The Military Ahead Of Time Or Maybe The Battleships Shouldn't Have All Been In The Harbor And All That Kind Of Thing.

Intrinsic Value Can Be Defined Simply: It Is The Discounted Value Of The Cash That Can Be Taken Out Of A Business During Its Remaining Life. The Calculation Of Intrinsic Value, Though, Is Not So Simple. As Our Definition Suggests, Intrinsic Value Is An Estimate Rather Than A Precise Figure, And It Is Additionally An Estimate That Must Be Changed If Interest Rates Move Or Forecasts Of Future Cash Flows Are Revised.

Fear Is The Foe Of The Faddist, But The Friend Of The Fundamentalist.

To Be Successful, You Should Concentrate On The World Of Companies, Not Arcane Accounting Mathematics.

To Win, The First Thing You Have To Do Is Not Lose.

The Best Thing I Did Was Choose The Right Heroes.

We Simply Attempt To Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy And To Be Greedy Only When Others Are Fearful.

Wall Street Makes Its Money On Activity. You Make Your Money On Inactivity.

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.

We've Got All The Ingredients For A Sensational Future.

If, When Making A Stock Investment, You're Not Considering Holding It At Least Ten Years, Don't Waste More Than Ten Minutes Considering It.

If You Don't Feel Comfortable Owning Something For 10 Years, Then Don't Own It For 10 Minutes.

I Know The Country Works Extremely Well. You Know, But When It Isn't Clogged Up.

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.

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.

The Value Of Market Esoterica To The Consumer Of Investment Advice Is A Different Story. In My Opinion, Investment Success Will Not Be Produced By Arcane Formulae, Computer Programs Or Signals Flashed By The Price Behavior Of Stocks And Markets. Rather An Investor Will Succeed By Coupling Good Business Judgment With An Ability To Insulate His Thoughts And Behavior From The Super-contagious Emotions That Swirl About The Marketplace.

Investment Success

I Am A Better Investor Because I Am A Businessman, And A Better Businessman Because I Am No Investor.

You Need A Lot Of Curiosity For A Long, Long Time.

Never Be Afraid To Ask For Too Much When Selling Or Offer Too Little When Buying.

A Lot Of Great Fortunes In The World Have Been Made By Owning A Single Wonderful Business. If You Understand The Business, You Don't Need To Own Very Many Of Them.

I Mean, Hank Paulson Is In There [ Treasury] At The Wrong Time, Probably Shouldn't Have Taken The Job. He's A Friend Of Mine. But He Knows Markets, He Knows Corporations' Work, He Knows Money, And He's Got The Interests Of The Country At Heart.

Is Management Candid With The Shareholders?

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.

Credit Worthiness Is Like Virginity, It Can Be Preserved But Not Restored Very Easily, So It Is Crazy To Play Around With It.

Too Often, A Vast Collection Of Possessions Ends Up Possessing Its Owner. The Asset I Most Value, Aside From Health, Is Interesting, Diverse, And Long-standing Friends.

People Went Crazy With Tulip Bulbs. They Went Crazy With The South Sea Bubble, They Went Crazy Internet Stocks, They Went Crazy With The Uranium Stocks Back When I Was First Getting Started.

Too Often, Executive Compensation In The U.s. Is Ridiculously Out Of Line With Performance. That Won't Change, Moreover, Because The Deck Is Stacked Against Investors When It Comes To The Ceo's Pay.

My Net Worth Is The Market Value Of Holdings Less The Tax Payable Upon Sale. The Liability Is Just As Real As The Asset Unless The Value Of The Asset Declines (ouch), The Asset Is Given Away (no Comment), Or I Die With It. The Latter Course Of Action Would Appear To At Least Border On A Pyrrhic Victory.

If You Buy Things You Do Not Need, Soon You Will Have To Sell Things You Need.

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.

I Like To Buy Things I Can Understand. I Do A Lot Of Research On Things.

If We Have A Strength, It Is In Recognizing When We Are Operating Well Within Our Circle Of Competence And When We Are Approaching The Perimeter.

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.

It's Going To Be Tough Because The Economy Is Going To Be Getting Worse For A While. And It Might Fall Off A Cliff If This Doesn't Pass. But Nobody Will Ever Know That If It Does.

I'm Always Interested In Understanding The Math Of Things And Understanding As Much As I Can About All Aspects Of Business. And What I Learn Today May Be Useful To Me Two Years From Now. That's Really The Wonderful Thing About Investments Is Your Knowledge Is Cumulative.

Invest In As Much Of Yourself As You Can, You Are Your Own Biggest Asset By Far.

Buy Into A Company Because You Want To Own It, Not Because You Want The Stock To Go Up.

Investing Money

I Don't Read Economic Forecasts. I Don't Read The Funny Papers.

I Mean You Know At Midnight Everything Is Going To Turn To Pumpkins And Mice; Right? But If The Evening Goes Along, I Mean, You Know, The Guys Look Better All The Time, The Music Sounds Better, It's More And More Fun, You Think Why The Hell Should I Leave At Quarter Of 12. I'll Leave At Two Minutes To 12. But The Trouble Is, There Are No Clocks On The Wall. And Everybody Thinks They're Going To Leave At Two Minutes To 12.

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.

Be Fearful When There Is Greed And Be Greedy When There Is Fear.

Every Day That Goes By, I Mean, If You Don't React To Pearl Harbor For A Week Or Two Weeks Or Three Weeks, You're Behind In The War That You Otherwise Would Have Fought.

Bull Markets And Bear Markets Can Obscure Mathematical Laws, They Cannot Repeal Them.

Earnings Can Be Pliable As Putty When A Charlatan Heads The Company Reporting Them.

We Set No Volume Goals In Our Insurance Business Generally-and Certainly Not In Reinsurance-as Virtually Any Volume Can Be Achieved If Profitability Standards Are Ignored.

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.

Investing Is The Greatest Business In The World Because You Never Have To Swing. You Stand At The Plate; The Pitcher Throws You General Motors At 47! U.s. Steel At 39! And Nobody Calls A Strike On You. There's No Penalty Except Opportunity. All Day You Wait For The Pitch You Like; Then, When The Fielders Are Asleep, You Step Up And Hit It.

I Want To Be Able To Explain My Mistakes. This Means I Do Only The Things I Completely Understand.

I Don't Know That I Could Draw One That's Perfect. But I'd Rather By Approximately Right Than Precisely Wrong, And It Would Be Precisely Wrong To Turn It Down.

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

There Is Seldom Just One Cockroach In The Kitchen. You Know, You Turn On The Light And, All Of Sudden, They All Start Scurrying Around.

A Bull Market Is Like Sex. It Feels Best Just Before It Ends.

There Is No Question We Have An Access Stock.

The Best Way In My View Is To Just Buy A Low-cost Index Fund And Keep Buying It Regularly Over Time, Because You'll Be Buying Into A Wonderful Industry, Which In Effect Is All Of American Industry... People Ought To Sit Back And Relax And Keep Accumulating Over Time.

The Worst Sort Of Business Is One That Grows Rapidly, Requires Significant Capital To Engender The Growth, And Then Earns Little Or No Money. Think Airlines. Here A Durable Competitive Advantage Has Proven Elusive Ever Since The Days Of The Wright Brothers. Indeed, If A Farsighted Capitalist Had Been Present At Kitty Hawk, He Would Have Done His Successors A Huge Favor By Shooting Orville Down.

If You Invested In A Very 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.

I Would Say That Life At 84, I Am Having As Much Fun As I've Ever Had In My Life. I Mean I Get To Do What I Love Every Day With The People I Love-and It Just Doesn't Get Any Better Than That.

When Investing, Pessimism Is Your Friend, Euphoria The Enemy.

It Is Not Necessary To Do Extraordinary Things To Get Extraordinary Results.

It's A Big Mistake To Try And Mislead People. They Will Turn Around.

Money Is Not Everything. Make Sure You Earn A Lot Before Speaking Such Nonsense.

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?

I Read Annual Reports Of The Company I'm Looking At And I Read The Annual Reports Of The Competitors - That Is The Main Source Of Material.

The Future Is Never Clear; You Pay A Very High Price In The Stock Market For A Cheery Consensus. Uncertainty Actually Is The Friend Of The Buyer Of Long-term Values.

If You Gave Me The Choice Of Being Ceo Of General Electric Or Ibm Or General Motors, You Name It, Or Delivering Papers, I Would Deliver Papers. I Would. I Enjoyed Doing That. I Can Think About What I Want To Think. I Don't Have To Do Anything I Don't Want To Do.

An Irresistable Footnote: In 1971, Pension Fund Managers Invested A Record 122% Of Net Funds Available In Equities - At Full Prices They Couldn't Buy Enough Of Them. In 1974, After The Bottom Had Fallen Out, They Committed A Then Record Low Of 21% To Stocks.

In The Great Majority Of Cases We Simply Do Not Know Enough About The Industry Or Company To Come To Sensible Judgments-in That Situation We Pass.

The Most Dangerous Distractions Are The Ones You Love, But That Don’t Love You Back.

When A Management With Reputation For Brilliance Gets Hooked Up With A Business With A Reputation For Bad Economics, It's The Reputation Of The Business That Remains Intact.

I Would Say That An Rfc-like Thing Might Make Sense. I Probably Would Do It Myself. But I Don't Think Trying To Combine That With What's Going Through Now, I Think What Is Needed Now Is Liquidity.

I Never Try To Predict The Market.

So Some Guy May Know How To Make Money In Cocoa Beans, But I Don't So I Just Let Him Have That. But It's Got To Be Something I Understand. It's Got To Be A Business With Fundamentally Good Economics. It's Got To Be A Management That I Like And Trust And Admire. And It's Got To Be A Price That Makes Sense.

The Less Prudence With Which Others Conduct Their Affairs, The Greater The Prudence With Which We Should Conduct Our Own Affairs.

Chains Of Habit Are Too Light To Be Felt Until They Are Too Heavy To Be Broken.

It's Class Warfare, My Class Is Winning, But They Shouldn't Be.

I Make Plenty Of Mistakes And I'll Make Plenty More Mistakes, Too. That's Part Of The Game. You've Just Got To Make Sure That The Right Things Overcome The Wrong Ones.

If You Don't Make Mistakes You Can't Make Decisions.

Suppose That An Investor You Admire And Trust Comes To You With An Investment Idea. This Is A Good One, He Says Enthusiastically. I'm In It, And I Think You Should Be, Too.

In My View, [the Trade Deficit] Will Create Political Turmoil At Some Point...pretty Soon, I Think There Will Be A Big Adjustment.

There Are Certain Things That Cannot Be Adequately Explained To A Virgin Either By Words Or Pictures.

You Don't Ever Ask A Barber Whether You Need A Haircut.

When Bills Come Due, Only Cash Is Legal Tender. Don't Leave Home Without It.

Well, It May Be All Right In Practice, But It Will Never Work In Theory

He Must Never Forget Charlie's Plea: Tell Me Where I'm Going To Die, So I'll Never Go There.

If You Can Tell Me Who Your Heroes Are, I Can Tell You How You're Going To Turn Out In Life.

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