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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.
-Warren Buffett
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The Latter Qualification Brings

Warren Buffett
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.
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Topic
Jobs
Years
Mind
More From Warren Buffett
The Only Way To Be Loved Is To Be Loveable, Which Really Irritates Me.
Way
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.
Events
Made
Macro
The Fact That People Will Be Full Of Greed, Fear, Or Folly Is Predictable. The Sequence Is Not Predictable.
People
Greed
Investing
Personally, I Really Hope I Can Treat Everyone Equally. I Think I Have Done A Pretty Good Job So Far But I Know I Can Do It Better.
Jobs
Thinking
Done
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
The U.s. Treasury Has Got Borrowing Costs Like Nobody Else Has.
Cost
Treasury
Borrowing
At Berkshire, I Both Initiate And Monitor Every Derivatives Contract On Our Books ... If Berkshire Ever Gets In Trouble, It Will Be My Fault. It Will Not Be Because Of The Misjudgments Made By A Risk Committee Or Chief Risk Officer.
Book
Risk
Faults
... But The Important Thing Is That When You Do Find One Where You Really Do Know What You Are Doing, You Must Buy In Quantity.... Charlie And I Have Made A Dozen Or So Very Big Decisions Relative To Net Worth, Although Not As Big As They Should Have Been. And In Each Of Those, We've Known That We Were Almost Certain To Be Right Going In.
Should Have
Decision
Important
In The End, Alchemy, Whether It Is Metallurgical Or Financial, Fails. A Base Business Can Not Be Transformed Into A Golden Business By Tricks Of Accounting Or Capital Structure. The Man Claiming To Be A Financial Alchemist May Become Rich. But Gullible Investors Rather Than Business Achievements Will Usually Be The Source Of His Wealth.
Men
Alchemist
Investing
If You Understood A Business Perfectly And The Future Of The Business, You Would Need Very Little In The Way Of A Margin Of Safety. So, The More Vulnerable The Business Is, Assuming You Still Want To Invest In It, The Larger Margin Of Safety You'd Need. If You're Driving A Truck Across A Bridge That Says It Holds 10,000 Pounds And You've Got A 9,800 Pound Vehicle, If The Bridge Is 6 Inches Above The Crevice It Covers, You May Feel Okay, But If It's Over The Grand Canyon, You May Feel You Want A Little Larger Margin Of Safety.
Bridges
Safety
Needs
Investment Philosophy Is The Clear Understanding That By Owning Shares Of Stocks He Owns Businesses, Not Pieces Of Paper.
Philosophy
Understanding
Pieces
As I Have Mentioned Before, We Cannot Make The Same Sort Of Money Out Of Permanent Ownership Of Controlled Businesses That Can Be Made From Buying And Reselling Such Businesses, Or From Skilled Investment In Marketable Securities. Nevertheless, They Offer A Pleasant Long Term Form Of Activity (when Conducted In Conjunction With High Grade, Able People) At Satisfactory Rates Of Return.
Long
People
Able
I Sent One E-mail In My Life. I Sent It To Jeff Raikes At Microsoft, And It Ended Up In Court In Minneapolis, So I Am One For One.
Microsoft
Mail
Minneapolis
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 Try To Buy Businesses With Good-to-superb Underlying Economics Run By Honest And Able People And Buy Them At Sensible Prices. That's All I'm Trying To Do.
Running
People
Trying
In Our View, Derivatives Are Financial Weapons Of Mass Destruction Carrying Dangers That, While Latent, Are Potentially Lethal.
Business
Mass Destruction
Views
If You Don't Make Mistakes You Can't Make Decisions.
Mistake
Decision
Ifs
If You Gave Me $100 Billion And Said Take Away The Soft Drink Leadership Of Coca-cola In The World, I'd Give It Back To You And Say It Can't Be Done.
Giving
Soft Drinks
Done
In That, We Agreed With Andrew Carnegie, Who Said That Huge Fortunes That Flow In Large Part From Society Should In Large Part Be Returned To Society. In My Case, The Ability To Allocate Capital Would Have Had Little Utility Unless I Lived In A Rich, Populous Country In Which Enormous Quantities Of Marketable Securities Were Traded And Were Sometimes Ridiculously Mispriced. And Fortunately For Me, That Describes The U.s. In The Second Half Of The Last Century.
Country
Enormous Quantities
Society
Continually Challenge And Be Willing To Amend Your Best Loved Ideas.
Best Love
Ideas
Challenges
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.
Country
Jobs
Taken
Lethargy Bordering On Sloth Remains The Cornerstone Of Our Investment Style. The Exception Was Wells Fargo, A Superbly-managed, High-return Banking Operation In Which We Increased Our Ownership To Just Under 10%, The Most We Can Own Without The Approval Of The Federal Reserve Board.
Sloth
Style
Boards
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
While The Poor And Middle Class Fight For Us In Afghanistan, And While Most Americans Struggle To Make Ends Meet, We Mega-rich Continue To Get Our Extraordinary Tax Breaks.
Struggle
Fighting
Class
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
Focus On Your Customers And Lead Your People As Though Their Lives Depend On Your Success.
People
Focus
Investing
The Best Investment You Can Make Is In Yourself.
Inspirational
Investment Success
Entrepreneur
Nothing Sedates Rationality Like Large Doses Of Effortless Money.
Investing Money
Buffets
Rationality
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
I Don't Want To Hold Out False Hopes That The - By Some Magic Moment, That Things Will Turn Around In A Couple Months Because They Wouldn't, Charlie. I Mean, And It's A Big Mistake To Try And Mislead People.
Couple
Mistake
Mean
[the U.s. Treasury] Can Borrow Basically Unlimited Amounts. They Can Stay There For Years And Years. These Assets Will Be Worth More Money Over Time. So When Merrill Lynch Sells A Bunch Of Mortgage-related Assets At 22 Cents On The Dollar Like They Did A Month Or So Ago, The Buyer Goes - Is Going To Make Money, And He's Going To Make A Lot More Money If It Happens To Be An Institution Like The U.s. Government Which Has Very, Very Cheap Borrowing Costs.
Government
Years
Dollars
In An Inflationary World, A Toll Bridge (like Company) Would Be A Great Thing To Own Because You've Laid Out The Capital Costs. You Built It In Old Dollars And You Don't Have To Keep Replacing It.
Bridges
Dollars
Would Be
If You Have A Harem Of 40 Women, You Never Get To Know Any Of Them Very Well.
Wells
Harem
Knows
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
A Hyperactive Stock Market Is The Pickpocket Of Enterprise.
Investing
Enterprise
Our Investments Continue To Be Few In Number And Simple In Concept: The Truly Big Investment Idea Can Usually Be Explained In A Short Paragraph. We Like A Business With Enduring Competitive Advantages That Is Run By Able And Owner-oriented People. When These Attributes Exist, And When We Can Make Purchases At Sensible Prices, It Is Hard To Go Wrong (a Challenge We Periodically Manage To Overcome).
Running
Simple
Ideas
The Line Separating Investment And Speculation, Which Is Never Bright And Clear, Becomes Blurred Still Further When Most Market Participants Have Recently Enjoyed Triumphs. Nothing Sedates Rationality Like Large Doses Of Effortless Money. After A Heady Experience Of That Kind, Normally Sensible People Drift Into Behavior Akin To That Of Cinderella At The Ball.
Investing Money
People
Triumph
I Think That Trying To Invest Through 535 People Is A Tough Job, You Know, And So I Would Give More Latitude.
Jobs
Thinking
People
A Home Is One Of The Most Important Assets That Most People Will Ever Buy. Homes Are Also Where Memories Are Made And You Want To Work With Someone You Can Trust.
Memories
Home
People
Problems In A Company Are Like Cockroaches In The Kitchen. You Will Never Find Just One
Kitchen
Cockroaches
Problem
The Difference Between Successful People And Really Successful People Is That Really Successful People Say No To Almost Everything.
Life
Success
Differences
There Are Certain Things That Cannot Be Adequately Explained To A Virgin Either By Words Or Pictures.
One Line
One Liner
Certain
I've Already Written A Section In The Annual Report For Next Year Explaining Why I Think In One Case That The Figures On Our Balance Sheet As Calculated Are Wrong. But It's The Standard Way Of Doing It. It's Holy Writ. The Sec Wants Us To Do It That Way, And We'll Do It That Way, And I'll Explain Why I Think It's Wrong And Shareholders Can Read It And See Whether They Agree With My Logic Or Don't.
Thinking
Years
Balance
Many Stock Options In The Corporate World Have Worked In Exactly That Fashion: They Have Gained In Value Simply Because Management Retained Earnings, Not Because It Did Well With The Capital In Its Hands.
Fashion
Hands
World
I Bought My First Stock In 1942, In The Summer Of '42. I Was 11 Years Old. And So 75 Years Have Gone By. And I Have Never Known What The Market's Going To Do The Next Day. And That's Not My Game. My Game Is To Decide Whether I'm In The Right Economy, Which America's Definitely Been Ever Since That Time. The Dow Has Gone From 100 To 21,000 During That Time. And No Matter What The Headlines Say, Or Terrible Things Are Happening - We Were Losing The War In The Pacific When I First Bought Stocks.
Summer
War
Losing
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
There's Always A Mismatch. I Mean, You Know, As The Economy Evolves, It Reallocates Resources. Now, The Real Problem, In My View, Is - This Has Been - The Prosperity Has Been Unbelievable For The Extremely Rich People. If You Go To 1982, When Forbes Put On Their First 400 List, Those People Had $93 Billion. They Now They Have $2.4 Trillion, 25 For One. That Is - This Has Been A Prosperity That's Been Disproportionately Rewarding To The People On Top.
Real
Mean
People
Traditional Wisdom Is Long On Tradition And Short On Wisdom.
Long
Investing
Tradition
We Simply Attempt To Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy And To Be Greedy Only When Others Are Fearful.
Success
Money
Fear
We Continue To Make More Money When Snoring Than When Active.
Investing
Timing
More Money
When We Really Sit Back With A Smile On Our Face Is When We Run Into A Situation We Can Understand, Where The Facts Are Ascertainable And Clear, And The Course Of Action Obvious.
Running
Faces
Facts
Yeah, We Don't Consider Many Stupid Things. I Mean, We Get Rid Of 'em Fast...just Getting Rid Of The Nonsense -- Just Figuring Out That If People Call You And Say, 'i've Got This Great, Wonderful Idea', You Don't Spend 10 Minutes Once You Know In The First Sentence That It Isn't A Great, Wonderful Idea...don't Be Polite And Go Through The Whole Process.
Stupid
Mean
Ideas
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.
Needs
World
Wonderful
Cash Combined With Courage In A Time Of Crisis Is Priceless.
Intelligent
Investing
Cash
We Really Can Say No In 10 Seconds Or So To 90%+ Of All The Things That Come Along Simply Because We Have These Filters.
Filters
Investing
Seconds
The Investor Of Today Does Not Profit From Yesterday's Growth.
War
Past
Investing Money
Equities Will Do Well Over Time - You Just Have To Avoid Getting Excited When Other People Are Getting Excited.
People
Excited
Equity
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.
People
Should
Admire
In The Long Run Managements Stressing Accounting Appearance Over Economic Substance Usually Achieve Little Of Either.
Running
Business
Stress
Don't Invest In Pieces Of Papers (stocks), Invest In Great Businesses Underlying Them
Pieces
Paper
Great Business
Take Wrigley's Chewing Gum. I Don't Think The Internet Is Going To Change How People Chew Gum.
Thinking
People
Gum
You Can Be Sure That Over The Next 10 Years, You'll See Something That You Did Not Think Was Possible.
Thinking
Years
Investing
The Value Of A Business Is The Cash It's Going To Produce In The Future.
Cash
Produce
Values
I Have Three Boxes On My Desk: In, Out, And Too Hard.
Three
Boxes
Desks
Opportunities Come Infrequently. When It Rains Gold, Put Out The Bucket, Not The Thimble.
Rain
Opportunity
Gold
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.
Business
Thinking
Ideas
Never Be Afraid To Ask For Too Much When Selling Or Offer Too Little When Buying.
Littles
Too Much
Buying
We've Got All The Ingredients For A Sensational Future.
Ingredients
Sensational
I'm Not Worried They're All About The Investments We Make. I Mean, Listen, This Country - We've Got $46,000 Or $47,000 Of Gdp Per Capita. Now, We've Done Pretty Darn Well. We'll Do Better In The Future.
Country
Mean
Gdp
Economic Medicine That Was Previously Meted Out By The Cupful Has Recently Been Dispensed By The Barrel. These Once Unthinkable Dosages Will Almost Certainly Bring On Unwelcome After-effects. Their Precise Nature Is Anyone's Guess, Though One Likely Consequence Is An Onslaught Of Inflation.
Medicine
Economic
Barrels
I've Never Been Very Fully Employed Either.
Employed
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.
Military
Mean
Pearls
That Goes Back To 1932, Although It Was Really Implemented In '33 Under Jesse Jones, And It Invested In Mostly Banks Initially And Preferred Stock And That Sort Of Thing. So There Are Two Things Needed In The System, The One That's Needed Overwhelmingly Is Liquidity. I Mean, When People Are Trying To [unintelligible], There Has To Be Somebody There To Buy.
Mean
Two
People
The Best Education You Can Get Is Investing In Yourself, And That Doesn't Mean College Or University.
Mean
College
Investing
It Is Unquestionably True That The Investment Companies Have Their Money More Conventionally Invested Than We Do. To Many People Conventionality Is Indistinguishable From Conservatism. In My View, This Represents Erroneous Thinking. Neither A Conventional Nor An Unconventional Approach, Per Se, Is Conservative.
Thinking
Views
People
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.
Wall
Lying
Knowledge
I Would Say It's More Important Who The Treasury Secretary Is Than Who The Vice President Is. If You Want To Have A Debate Here, I'd Like A Debate Between Potential Treasury Secretaries Than The Vice Presidential Debate.
Presidential
Important
Vices
... Not Doing What We Love In The Name Of Greed Is Very Poor Management Of Our Lives.
Life
Investment Success
Names
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.
Thinking
Names
Choices
In The Insurance Business, There Is No Statute Of Limitation On Stupidity.
Stupidity
Statutes
Limitation
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.
Two
Gold
Use
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.
Majority
Judgment
Enough
Money Is Not Everything. Make Sure You Earn A Lot Before Speaking Such Nonsense.
Investing
Nonsense
I Measure Success By How Many People Love Me. And The Best Way To Be Loved Is To Be Lo Veable.
People
Way
Measure Of Success
The Critical Investment Factor Is Determining The Intrinsic Value Of A Business And Paying A Fair Or Bargain Price.
Investing
Buffets
Investment
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.
Views
Investing
Owners
I'm Just Lucky To Have Been In The Right Place At The Right Time. Another Place, Another Time, I Wouldn't Have Been As Successful. Society Enabled Me To Make My Money And My Money Should Go To Society.
Successful
Lucky
Should
I Don't Think You Can Have A Better Secretary Of The Treasury Than Hank Paulson.
Thinking
Treasury
Secretary
Be Brave When Others Are Afraid, And Afraid When Others Are Brave.
Brave
Be Brave
If You Can't Communicate And Talk To Other People And Get Across Your Ideas, You're Giving Up Your Potential.
Giving Up
Ideas
People
If You Buy Things You Do Not Need, Soon You Will Have To Sell Things You Need.
Inspirational
Money
Buying Things
The Secret To Happiness Is Having Low Expectations.
Expectations
Secret
Lows
If I Were The Treasury Secretary Or Head Of The Fed, You Know, I Would Try To Scare The Hell The Out Of The Private Sector And Say, You Better Save This Because You're Going Down With The Ship.
Trying
Scare
Ships
You Get In A Lot Of Trouble When You Start Putting Fictitious Numbers.
Numbers
Trouble
I've Argued With The Senators And Congressmen I've Talked To. You Don't Want To Be Too Little Too Late. If You Buy Them At The Right Price, You May Be Buying Two Trillion Of Face Value.
Two
Too Late
May
Well, I Think The Biggest Mistake Is Not Learning The Habits Of Saving Properly Early. Because Saving Is A Habit. And Then, Trying To Get Rich Quick. It's Pretty Easy To Get Well-to-do Slowly. But It's Not Easy To Get Rich Quick.
Get Well
Mistake
Thinking
If I Knew Where I Was Going To Want To Live The Next Five Or 10 Years I Would Buy A Home And I'd Finance It With A 30-year Mortgage... It's A Terrific Deal.
Home
Years
Want
The Best Investment You Can Make, Is An Investment In Yourself... The More You Learn, The More You'll Earn.
Investment
Best Investment
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.
Moving
Taken
Simple
We've Long Felt That The Only Value Of Stock Forecasters Is To Make Fortune Tellers Look Good. Even Now, Charlie And I Continue To Believe That Short-term Market Forecasts Are Poison And Should Be Kept Locked Up In A Safe Place, Away From Children And Also From Grown-ups Who Behave In The Market Like Children.
Children
Believe
Long
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.
Fun
Mean
People
This Economy Doesn't Work Well Without The Lubrication Of Credit And Trust.
Credit
Economy
Wells
Money To Some Extent Sometimes Let You Be In More Interesting Environments. But It Can't Change How Many People Love You Or How Healthy You Are.
Love You
People
Interesting
A Lot Of People Disagree With Me On This, I Believe In Mark To Market.
Believe
People
Mark
We've Used Derivatives For Many, Many Years. I Don't Think Derivatives Are Evil, Per Se, I Think They Are Dangerous.
Thinking
Years
Evil
I Learned To Go Into Business Only With People Whom I Like, Trust, And Admire.
People
Admire
If You've Got The Power To Raise Prices Without Losing Business To A Competitor, You've Got A Very Good Business. And If You Have To Have A Prayer Session Before Raising The Price By A Tenth Of A Cent, Then You've Got A Terrible Business. I've Been In Both, And I Know The Difference.
Prayer
Differences
Losing
First Come The Innovators, Then Come The Imitators, Then Come The Idiots.
Investing
Firsts
Idiot
Things You Like To Do Should Be A Hobby Of Yours, But Things The World Does Should Be A Business Of Yours.
Hobbies
Doe
World
A Stock Doesn't Know That You Own It.
Knows
It Isn't Given To Man To Be Able To Run A Financial Institution Where Different Interest-rate Scenarios Will Prevail On All Of That So As To Produce Kind Of Smooth, Regular Earnings From A Very Large Base To Start With.
Running
Men
Able
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
Giving
Way
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
A Company Should Be Viewed As An Unfolding Movie, Not As A Still Photograph
Photograph
Should
Unfolding
Never Depend On A Single Source Of Income.
Income
Source
Depends
With Housing It's Something Even More Dramatic Than That, Because Most People Aspire To Own Their Own Home.if You Really Think That Houses Prices Are Going To Go Up Next Year And The Year After, You Feel If I Don't Buy It This Year, I'm Going To Have To Buy It Next Year.that's Not True Of An Internet Stock. But It's True Of A Home.
Home
Thinking
Years
When People Tell Me They've Learned From Experience, I Tell Them The Trick Is To Learn From Other People's Experience.
Love
Marriage
People
Exercise Humility And Restraint.
Humility
Exercise
Restraint
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.'
Believe
Romantic Love
Night
The Good Thing Is, We Have Household Formation In This Country.
Country
Good Things
Household
We've Got A Wonderful Economic Formula In This Country.
Country
Wonderful
Economic
But 300 Million Americans, Their Lending Institutions, Their Government, Their Media, All Believed That House Prices Were Going To Go Up Consistently. And That Got Billed Into A $20 Trillion Residential Home Market. Lending Was Done Based On It, And Everybody Did A Lot Of Foolish Things.
Home
Government
Media
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
Skills
People
Diversification Is Protection Against Ignorance. It Makes Little Sense If You Know What You Are Doing.
Life
Ignorance
Investing
If This Is A War, My Side Has The Nuclear Bomb. We Have K Street. We Have Wall Street. Debbie Doesn't Have Anybody. I Want A Government That Is Responsive To The People Who Got The Short Straw In Life.
Wall
Fear
War
When Berkshire Buys Common Stock, We Approach The Transaction As If We Were Buying Into A Private Business.
Investing
Buying
Common
The Typical Large Company Has A Compensation Committee, They Don't Look For Dobermans On That Committee, They Look For Chihuahuas.
Typical
Looks
Dobermans
In Economics, You Always Want To Ask 'and Then What?'
Insightful
Investing
Want
A Market Downturn, Doesn't Bother Us. For Us And Our Long Term Investors, It Is An Opportunity To Increase Our Ownership Of Great Companies With Great Management At Good Prices. Only For Short Term Investors And Market Timers Is A Correction Not An Opportunity.
Opportunity
Long
Management
We Enjoy The Process Far More Than The Proceeds.
Business
War
Investing
If You Want To Soar Like An Eagle In Life, You Can't Be Flocking With The Turkeys.
Eagles
Turkeys
Want
Money Will Always Flow Toward Opportunity, And There Is An Abundance Of That In America.
Opportunity
America
Flow
Look At Market Fluctuations As Your Friend Rather Than Your Enemy; Profit From Folly Rather Than Participate In It.
Investment Success
Enemy
Looks
I Think The Rest Of The Country Should Be Paying Less, The 95 Percent That [barack] Obama Talks About Or Maybe Even A Little Higher Than That.
Country
Thinking
Littles
Investment Ideas, Like Women Are Often More Exciting Than Punctual.
Ideas
Investment
Exciting
A Bull Market Is Like Sex. It Feels Best Just Before It Ends.
Sex
Bulls
Ends
If You Expect To Be A Net Saver During The Next 5 Years, Should You Hope For A Higher Or Lower Stock Market During That Period? Many Investors Get This One Wrong. Even Though They Are Going To Be Net Buyers Of Stocks For Many Years To Come, They Are Elated When Stock Prices Rise And Depressed When They Fall. This Reaction Makes No Sense. Only Those Who Will Be Sellers Of Equities In The Near Future Should Be Happy At Seeing Stocks Rise. Prospective Purchasers Should Much Prefer Sinking Prices.
Fall
Years
Next
If Principles Can Become Dated, They're Not Principles.
Life
Generosity
Principles
That Which Is Not Worth Doing At All Is Not Worth Doing Well.
Wells
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
The Stock Market Is Designed To Transfer Money From The Active To The Patient.
Money
Investing
Patient
[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.
Couple
Eight
Government
The Ability To Say No Is A Tremendous Advantage For An Investor.
Money
Investing
Advantage
Stocks Of Companies Selling Commodity-like Products Should Come With A Warning Label: "competition May Prove Hazardous To Human Wealth".
Competition
May
Labels
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.
Perfect
Would Be
Turns
You Can't Produce A Baby In One Month By Getting Nine Women Pregnant.
Baby
Smart
Investing Money
Rule No.1: Never Lose Money. Rule No.2: Never Forget Rule No.1.
Funny
Success
Money
I Understand Goldman Sachs Businesses. We Do Lot Of Business With Him, And Ge Has Been - I Think It's The Longest Running Stock In The Dow Jones Industrial Average. It Will Be 100 Years Now It Will Be Around. I Hope I'm Around Then, Too. And It Was An Attractive Investment. And We Have Had A Lot Of Money Around, Over The Last Two Years, And We're Seeing Things That Are Attractive Now.
Running
Thinking
Average
Credit Worthiness Is Like Virginity, It Can Be Preserved But Not Restored Very Easily, So It Is Crazy To Play Around With It.
Crazy
Play
Credit
Valuing A Business Is Part Art And Part Science.
Art
Investing
For Example: (1) As If Governed By Newton's First Law Of Motion, An Institution Will Resist Any Change In Its Current Direction; (2) Just As Work Expands To Fill Available Time, Corporate Projects Or Acquisitions Will Materialize To Soak Up Available Funds; (3) Any Business Craving Of The Leader, However Foolish, Will Be Quickly Supported By Detailed Rate-of-return And Strategic Studies Prepared By His Troops; And (4) The Behavior Of Peer Companies, Whether They Are Expanding, Acquiring, Setting Executive Compensation Or Whatever, Will Be Mindlessly Imitated.
Law
Leader
Peers
I Lose Confidence In Other People, All Kinds Of Institutions.
People
Kind
Institutions
Your Premium Brand Had Better Be Delivering Something Special, Or It's Not Going To Get The Business.
Life
Success
Business
Ignore The Stock Market, Ignore The Economy, And Buy A Business You Understand.
Economy
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.
Mistake
Games
Overcoming
We Need A Tax System That Essentially Takes Very Good Care Of The People Who Just Really Aren't As Well Adapted To The Market System But Are Nevertheless Doing Useful Things In The Society.
People
Needs
Care
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.")
Hurt
Fall
Golf
Most Business Mistakes Are Irreversible Setbacks, But You Get Another Chance. There Are Two Things In Life That You Don't Get Another Chance At - Marrying The Wrong Person And What You Do With Your Children.
Children
Mistake
Things In Life
We Have Long Felt That The Only Value Of Stock Forecasters Is To Make Fortune-tellers Look Good.
Long
Looks
Investing
Never Get Too Hung Up On Mistakes.
Mistake
Hung
There Are 309 Million People Out There That Are Trying To Improve Their Lot In Life. And We've Got A System That Allows Them To Do It.
People
Trying
Millions
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.
Fields
Measurement
Dollars
To Win, The First Thing You Have To Do Is Not Lose.
Winning
Firsts
Loses
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
A Low-cost Index Fund Is The Most Sensible Equity Investment For The Great Majority Of Investors. My Mentor, Ben Graham, Took This Position Many Years Ago, And Everything I Have Seen Since Convinces Me Of Its Truth.
Years
Mentor
Majority
Never Lie Under Any Circumstances.
Life
Lying
Generosity
Our Future Rates Of Gain Will Fall Far Short Of Those Achieved In The Past. Berkshire's Capital Base Is Now Simply Too Large To Allow Us To Earn Truly Outsized Returns. If You Believe Otherwise, You Should Consider A Career In Sales But Avoid One In Mathematics.
Believe
Fall
Past
Investing In Yourself Is The Best Thing You Can Do. If You've Got Talents, No One Can Take Them From You.
Investing
Talent
Best Things
That's Been Lost. It's A Huge Problem. What You Have Is You Have The Major Institutions Of The World All Wanting To Deleverage. They Want To Take Down Their Assets And Liabilities. What Seemed So Easy To Borrow Against A Year Ago Now Looks Like Rat Poison To Them. So They're Trying To Deleverage. There Is Only One Institution In The World That Can Leverage Up In A Way That's All A Countervailing Force To That, And That's The United States Treasury.
Years
Trying
Poison
Diversification May Preserve Wealth, But Concentration Builds Wealth.
Concentration Of Wealth
Investing
May
What's Hot Today Isn't Likely To Be Hot Tomorrow. The Stock Market Reverts To Fundamental Returns Over The Long Run. Don't Follow The Herd.
Running
Long
Hot
A Newspaper That Reduces Its Coverage Of The News Important To Its Community Is Certain To Reduce Its Readership As Well
Community
Important
News
Returns Decrease As Motion Increases.
Return
Increase
Decrease
If You Don't Know The Jewelry, Know The Jeweller
Risk
Jewelry
Management
If Horses Had Controlled Investment Decisions, There Would Have Been No Auto Industry.
Horse
Decision
One Line
I Wouldn't Want To Manufacture Cigarettes. But If I Owned - We Do Own Costco. Do They Sell Them? Yes. So I Don't Have A Problem Owning Stock In That. But I Just Wouldn't Want To - I Wouldn't Want To Do It Myself. I Basically Think, If Anything Is Sufficiently Antisocial, Society Should Do Something About It. But That's A Separate Question. But - And I Don't Think There's Any Company That I Have Seen That's 100 Percent Pure.
Thinking
Problem
Antisocial
I Have No Views As To Where It Will Be, But The One Thing I Can Tell You Is It Won't Do Anything Between Now And Then Except Look At You. Whereas, You Know, Coca-cola (ko) Will Be Making Money, And I Think Wells Fargo (wfc) Will Be Making A Lot Of Money And There Will Be A Lot - And It's A Lot - It's A Lot Better To Have A Goose That Keeps Laying Eggs Than A Goose That Just Sits There And Eats Insurance And Storage And A Few Things Like That.
Thinking
Eggs
Views
I Never Invest In Anything That I Don't Understand.
When The Brothel Burns Down, Even The Pretty Girls Have To Run Out.
Girl
Running
Investing
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.
Brother
Thinking
Growth
It Is Not Necessary To Do Extraordinary Things To Get Extraordinary Results.
Motivational
Investing
Buffets
When Investing, Pessimism Is Your Friend, Euphoria The Enemy.
Enemy
Investing
Financial
The Greatest Investment A Young Person Can Make Is In Their Own Education, In Their Own Mind. Because Money Comes And Goes. Relationships Come And Go. But What You Learn Once Stays With You Forever.
Forever
Mind
Investment
It's Not Debt Per Say That Overwhelms An Individual Corporation Or Country. Rather It Is A Continuous Increase In Debt In Relation To Income That Causes Trouble.
Country
Income
Investing
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
An Investor Should Act As Though He Had A Lifetime Decision Card With Just Twenty Punches On It.
Decision
Twenties
Cards
[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.
People
Gold
Would Be
When Forced To Choose, I Will Not Trade Even A Night's Sleep For The Chance Of Extra Profits.
Life
Sleep
Night
We've Got More Productive Capacity Now Than We Ever Have.
Capacity
Productive
Risk Can Be Greatly Reduced By Concentrating On Only A Few Holdings.
Risk
Investing
Buffets
Occasionally, A Man Must Rise Above Principles.
Men
Principles
Rise Above
As Far As You Are Concerned, The Stock Market Does Not Exist. Ignore It.
Doe
Investing
Concerned
The Key To Life Is To Figure Out Who To Be The Batboy For.
Keys
Life Is
Figures
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
I Think You'll Have Plenty Of Scrutiny As How The Money's Invested. I Mean, Just Like The Rfc. When The Rfc Operated, People Knew Which Institutions They Were Buying Preferred Stock In. And It Worked Very Well.
Mean
Thinking
People
First, Many In Wall Street - A Community In Which Quality Control Is Not Prized - Will Sell Investors Anything They Will Buy.
Wall
Community
Quality
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
Geek
Be Fearful When There Is Greed And Be Greedy When There Is Fear.
Greed
Greedy
Fearful
Your Money Can Be Inflated Away But Your Knowledge And Talent Cannot.
Talent
If You Cannot Control Your Emotions, You Cannot Control Your Money.
Emotion
Ifs
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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