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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

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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.

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We Want To Use Cash. The Reason We Haven't Used Our Cash Two Years Ago, We Just Didn't Find Things That Were That Attractive. But When People Talk About Cash Being King, It's Not King If It Just Sits There And Never Does Anything. There Are Times When Cash Buys More Than Other Times, And This Is One Of The Other Times When It Buys A Fair Amount More, So We Use It.

Whether We’re Talking About Socks Or Stocks, I Like Buying Quality Merchandise When It Is Marked Down.

Investing Money

Possessing A Powerful Worldwide Brand Is Essential For Sustained Success.

You Get In A Lot Of Trouble When You Start Putting Fictitious Numbers.

We Do Not Have, Nor Have Had, And Never Will Have An Opinion About Where The Stock Market, Interest Rates, Or Business Activity Will Be A Year From Now.

By Periodically Investing In An Index Fund, The Know-nothing Investors Can Actually Outperform Most Investment Professionals.

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.

Never Depend On Single Income. Make Investment To Create A Second Source.

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.

I Always Invest In Companies An Idiot Could Run, Because One Day One Will.

All There Is To Investing Is Picking Good Stocks At Good Times And Staying With Them As Long As They Remain Good Companies.

Generally, We Have Translated Greater Output In The Few Hours Of Work Per Week Over The Last Century. And That's A Good Trend Of The Future. But We Do Have To Have A System That, As Output Of Goods And Services Keeps Increasing Per Capita, That It Takes Care Of The People Who Are Willing To Work And Really Are Not Getting By Very Well With A Family On A 40-hour Week.

When You Get To My Age, You’ll Measure Your Success In Life By How Many Of The People You Want To Have Love You Actually Do Love You. That’s The Ultimate Test Of How You’ve Lived Your Life.

You Have Hedge Funds And People Like That Buying These Assets To Yield 15 Or 20 Percent, I Mean, That's The Buyer For These People That Are Trying To Unload Them.

Does The Business Have Favourable Long Term Prospects?

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.

You Ought To Be Able To Explain Why You’re Taking The Job You’re Taking, Why You’re Making The Investment You’re Making, Or Whatever It May Be. And If It Can’t Stand Applying Pencil To Paper, You’d Better Think It Through Some More. And If You Can’t Write An Intelligent Answer To Those Questions, Don’t Do It.

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.

An Ipo Is Like A Negotiated Transaction - The Seller Chooses When To Come Public - And It's Unlikely To Be A Time That's Favourable To You.

Your Money Can Be Inflated Away But Your Knowledge And Talent Cannot.

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.

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

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

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.

Look At Market Fluctuations As Your Friend Rather Than Your Enemy; Profit From Folly Rather Than Participate In It.

Investment Success

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

The Purpose Of Life Is To Be Loved By As Many People As Possible Among Those You Want To Have Love You

Be Brave When Others Are Afraid, And Afraid When Others Are Brave.

The Best Thing I Did Was Choose The Right Heroes.

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.

Charlie [munger] And I Are Not Big Fans Of Resumes. Instead, We Focus On Brains, Passion And Integrity.

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.

Beware Of Geeks Bearing Formulas.

If You Cannot Control Your Emotions, You Cannot Control Your Money.

You Have To Understand Accounting And You Have To Understand The Nuances Of Accounting. It's The Language Of Business And It's An Imperfect Language, But Unless You Are Willing To Put In The Effort To Learn Accounting - How To Read And Interpret Financial Statements - You Really Shouldn't Select Stocks Yourself

The Idea That You Try To Time Purchases Based On What You Think Business Is Going To Do In The Next Year Or Two, I Think That's The Greatest Mistake That Investors Make Because It's Always Uncertain. People Say It's A Time Of Uncertainty. It Was Uncertain On September 10th, 2001, People Just Didn't Know It. It's Uncertain Every Single Day. So Take Uncertainty As Part Of Being Involved In Investment At All. But Uncertainty Can Be Your Friend. I Mean, When People Are Scared, They Pay Less For Things. We Try To Price. We Don't Try To Time At All.

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

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

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

In The Business World, The Rearview Mirror Is Always Clearer Than The Windshield.

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

We Have Provided Capital Here With A Couple Of Institutions Recently. The Federal Government Did That In The '30s For The Rfc And I Think There Could Well Be A Proper Role For Government In That.

It's Never Paid To Bet Against America. We Come Through Things, But Its Not Always A Smooth Ride.

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.

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

The Much-maligned Idle Rich Have Received A Bad Rap: They Have Maintained Their Wealth While Many There Is Scarcely An Instance Of A Man Who Has Made A Fortune By Speculation And Kept It. Andrew Carnegie Of The Energetic Rich, Aggressive Real Estate Operators, Corporate Acquirers, Oil Drillers, Etc. Have Their Fortunes Disappear.

The Woman That Comes In, Takes The Wastebasket Away, She's Paying 15.3 Or Whatever It Is On Payroll Tax Alone. I Mean It Is - I Never Had It So Good.

That Would Be Nice If [people] Stuck [treasury Bills] All Under A Mattress, But They Got To Buy Something With Them. Sometimes They Buy A Treasury Note, Sometimes They Set Up Sovereign Wealth Funds. They Can Do All Kinds Of Things. They Can Buy Our Companies Here. As Long As We Consume More Than We Produce, And We Trade Away Little Pieces Of The Country Daily, They're Going To Own Something. Now, They Can't Run From American Assets. I Mean Every Day The Rest Of The World Is Going To Have About Two Billion More Of American Assets Than We Have, As Long As They Sell Us These Goods.

I Checked The Actuarial Tables, And The Lowest Death Rate Is Among Six-year-olds. So I Decided To Eat Like A Six-year-old.

I Never Invest In Anything That I Don't Understand.

When You Build A Bridge, You Insist That It Can Carry 30,000 Pounds, But You Only Drive 10,000-pound Trucks Across It. And That Same Principle Works In Investing.

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.

Take Wrigley's Chewing Gum. I Don't Think The Internet Is Going To Change How People Chew Gum.

Read 500 Pages Every Day. That's How Knowledge Works. It Builds Up Like Compound Interest.

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

You Should Look At Stocks As Small Pieces Of Business.

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.

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.

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?

Most Investors, Both Institutional And Individual, Will Find That The Best Way To Own Common Stocks (shares') Is Through An Index Fund That Charges Minimal Fees. Those Following This Path Are Sure To Beat The Net Results (after Fees And Expenses) Of The Great Majority Of Investment Professionals.

Nevertheless, As Circumstances Presently Appear, I Feel Substantially Greater Size Is More Likely To Harm Future Results Than To Help Them. This Might Not Be True For My Own Personal Results, But It Is Likely To Be True For Your Results.

My Rather Puritanical View Is That Any Investment Manager, Whether Operating As Broker, Investment Counselor Of A Trust Department, Investment Company, Etc., Should Be Willing To State Unequivocally What He Is Going To Attempt To Accomplish And How He Proposes To Measure The Extent To Which He Gets The Job Done.

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.

We Don't Get Paid For Activity, Just For Being Right. As To How Long We'll Wait, We'll Wait Indefinitely.

If You Don't Know The Jewelry, Know The Jeweller

Risk Is A Part Of God's Game, Alike For Men And Nations.

Things You Like To Do Should Be A Hobby Of Yours, But Things The World Does Should Be A Business Of Yours.

There Is No Question We Have An Access Stock.

Charlie And I Decided Long Ago That In An Investment Lifetime, It's Too Hard To Make Hundreds Of Smart Decisions. That Judgment Became Ever More Compelling As Berkshire's Capital Mushroomed And The Universe Of Investments That Could Significantly Affect Our Results Shrank Dramatically. Therefore, We Adopted A Strategy That Required Our Being Smart And Not Too Smart At That, Only A Very Few Times. Indeed, We Now Settle For One Good Idea A Year.

I Wouldn’t Mind Going To Jail If I Had Three Cellmates Who Played Bridge

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.

I've Read About All The Sales Today. If You're An Auto Dealer, You're Feeling It. If You're A Furniture Retailer Like We Are, You're Feeling It. If You're A Jewelry Retailer, You're Feeling It. I Know Some Of These Businesses Because We're In Them. Yeah, It's Being Felt, But It Will Be Felt Big Time More If We Don't Do Something About It, What's Going On.

Uncertainty Is The Friend Of The Buyer Of Long Term Values.

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

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

The Stock Market Is A Wonderfully Efficient Mechanism For Transferring Wealth From The Impatient To The Patient.

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.

I Do Know That When I Am 60, I Should Be Attempting To Achieve Different Personal Goals Than Those Which Had Priority At Age 20.

Money Will Not Change How Healthy You Are Or How Many People Love You.

I Would Say The Most Satisfying Thing Actually Is Watching My Three Children Each Pick Up On Their Own Interests And Work Many More Hours Per Week Than Most People That Have Jobs At Trying To Intelligently Give Away That Money In Fields That They Particularly Care About.

I Would Rather Sustain The Penalties Resulting From Over-conservatism Than Face The Consequences Of Error, Perhaps With Permanent Capital Loss, Resulting From The Adoption Of "new Era" Philosophy Where Trees Really Do Grow To The Sky.

Benign Neglect, Bordering On Sloth, Remains The Hallmark Of Our Investment Process.

A Stock Doesn't Know That You Own It.

If I Taught A Class, On My Final Exam I Would Take An Internet Company And Ask, 'how Much Is This Company Worth?' Anyone Who Would Answer, I Would Flunk.

I Never Buy Anything Unless I Can Fill Out On A Piece Of Paper My Reasons. I May Be Wrong, But I Would Know The Answer To That ...i'm Paying $32 Billion Today For The Coca Cola Company Because... If You Can't Answer That Question, You Shouldn't Buy It. If You Can Answer That Question, And You Do It A Few Times, You'll Make A Lot Of Money.

Investing Your Time

If I Got A Chance To Take One Percent Of The Deal Either Way, I Would Make That Bet.

The American Economy Is Going To Do Fine. But It Won't Do Fine Every Year And Every Week And Every Month. I Mean, If You Don't Believe That, Forget About Buying Stocks Anyway... It's A Positive-sum Game, Long Term. And The Only Way An Investor Can Get Killed Is By High Fees Or By Trying To Outsmart The Market.

I Think What People Understand There Probably - Well, They Were Hoping The Private Sector Would Do It [rescuing Aig ].

None Of This Means, However, That A Business Or Stock Is An Intelligent Purchase Simply Because It Is Unpopular; A Contrarian Approach Is Just As Foolish As A Follow-the-crowd Strategy. What's Required Is Thinking Rather Than Polling. Unfortunately, Bertrand Russell's Observation About Life In General Applies With Unusual Force In The Financial World: "most Men Would Rather Die Than Think. Many Do."

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.

Risk Comes From Not Knowing What You're Doing.

Do Not Take Yearly Results Too Seriously. Instead, Focus On Four Or Five-year Averages.

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.

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.

Investing In Yourself Is The Best Thing You Can Do. If You've Got Talents, No One Can Take Them From You.

Good Profits Simply Are Not Inconsistent With Good Behavior.

I Don't Want To Give A Lecture To This Body That's Out There. You Know, I Mean, Having Had The Heart Attack, I Want To Get It Back Functioning. And As A Practical Matter, I Mean If You Were Bear Stearns, And You Were A Shareholder, You Know, You Lost 90 To 95 Percent Of Your Money. A Good Many Lost Their Jobs. They Lost Very Cushy Lives, Many Of Them.

Observing That The Market Was Frequently Efficient, Emt Adherents Went On To Conclude Incorrectly That It Was Always Efficient. The Difference Between These Propositions Is Night And Day.

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

The Secret Is To Find What You Love To Do.i Mean, I Tell The Students Look For The Job That You Would Take If You Didn't Need A Job. I Mean, It's That Simple. And I Was Lucky Enough To Find It Very Early In Life. And Then The Second Thing Is To Have People Around You That Make Feel Good Every Day, And Make You A Better Person Than You Otherwise Would Be.

John Maynard Keynes Essentially Said, Don't Try And Figure Out What The Market Is Doing. Figure Out A Business You Understand, And Concentrate.

Energy Deregulation Will Be The Largest Transfer Of Wealth In History.

Only When The Tide Goes Out Do You Discover Who's Been Swimming Naked.

Knowing What To Leave Out Is Just As Important As Knowing What To Focus On.

It's Got To Be The Best Intellectual Exercise Out There. You're Seeing Through New Situations Every Ten Minutes. In The Stock Market You Don't Base Your Decisions On What The Market Is Doing, But On What You Think Is Rational. Bridge Is About Weighing Gain/loss Ratios. You're Doing Calculations All The Time.

In Our View, Derivatives Are Financial Weapons Of Mass Destruction Carrying Dangers That, While Latent, Are Potentially Lethal.

Mass Destruction

Investors... Can't Pick Stocks That Are Better Than Average. Stocks Are A Good Thing To Own Over Time. There's Only Two Things You Can Do Wrong: You Can Buy The Wrong Ones, And You Can Buy Or Sell Them At The Wrong Time. And The Truth Is You Never Need To Sell Them.

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.

It's The Deleveraging That's Going On Right Now That Has Caused The Credit Crisis.

I Don't Have My Diploma From The University Of Nebraska Hanging On My Office Wall, And I Don't Have My Diploma From Columbia Up There Either-but I Do Have My Dale Carnegie Graduation Certificate Proudly Displayed.

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.

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

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

When You're Associating With The People That You Love, Doing What You Love, It Doesn't Get Any Better Than That.

Doing What You Love

I Did Not Think I Would See The Day When, You Know, An Aig Would Not Be Able To Have Its Checks Clear.

Do What You Love And Work For Whom You Admire The Most, And You've Given Yourself The Best Chance In Life You Can.

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

The Most Important Thing In Terms Of Your Circle Of Competence Is Not How Large The Area Of It Is, But How Well You've Defined The Perimeter.

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.

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

Having A Large Amount Of Leverage Is Like Driving A Car With A Dagger On The Steering Wheel Pointed At Your Heart. If You Do That, You Will Be A Better Driver. There Will Be Fewer Accidents But When They Happen, They Will Be Fatal.

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.

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

You Pay A Very High Price In The Stock Market For A Cheery Consensus.

You Are Lucky In Life If You Have The Right Heroes. I Advise All Of You, To The Extent You Can, To Pick Out A Few Heroes

If You Can't Read The Scoreboard. You Don't Know The Score. If You Don't Know The Score, You Can't Tell The Winners From The Losers.

Forecasts Usually Tell Us More Of The Forecaster Than Of The Forecast

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

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.

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.

I Think It Will Get Moving Faster. I Mean Once You Get It Off The - Once Credit Flows - Now The Recession Is Going To Get Worse.

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

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.

If You Owe Money, You Can't Pay Them Out. You Just Pay For Everything, You Do Smart Things, You Eventually Get Very Rich.

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.

Bad Terminology Is The Enemy Of Good Thinking.

They [goverment] Take From The Woman Who Comes In And Takes The Wastebaskets Out.

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

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.

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

It’s Not That I Want Money. It’s The Fun Of Making Money And Watching It Grow.

It Is Impossible To Unsign A Contract, So Do All Your Thinking Before You Sign.

It Is Obvious That The Performance Of A Stock Last Year Or Last Month Is No Reason, Per Se, To Either Own It Or To Not Own It Now. It Is Obvious That An Inability To "get Even" In A Security That Has Declined Is Of No Importance. It Is Obvious That The Inner Warm Glow That Results From Having Held A Winner Last Year Is Of No Importance In Making A Decision As To Whether It Belongs In An Optimum Portfolio This Year.

If You Were At Lehman, The Same Thing Happened. If You Were At Aig, The Shareholders Are Getting Creamed On These Things. And Those Shareholders Are Not Just A Bunch Of Big Shots In Wall Street. Those Are Pension Funds, And Those Are Investors All Over The Country. I Wouldn't Worry Too Much About That. Justice Won't Be Perfect On It.

If You Have A Great Manager, You Want To Pay Him Very Well.

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

If You Are Not Willing To Own A Stock For 10 Years, Do Not Even Think About Owning It For 10 Minutes.

Cultivate Curiosity And Strive To Become A Little Wiser Every Day.

The Business Schools Reward Difficult Complex Behavior More Than Simple Behavior, But Simple Behavior Is More Effective.

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

Never Invest In A Business You Can't Understand

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.

If You Don't Find A Way To Make Money While You Sleep, You Will Work Until You Die.

Look For 3 Things In A Person. Intelligence, Energy, & Integrity. If They Don't Have The Last One, Don't Even Bother With The First Two.

You Should Invest In A Business That Even A Fool Can Run, Because Someday A Fool Will.

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.

We Say We Are Trying To Buy Into Businesses With Excellent Economics, Run By Honest And Able People At A Decent Price. We Buy Very Few Securities, So We Look At It As "focused" Investing.

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.

It's A Lot Easier To Buy Things Than It Is To Sell Them.

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.

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.

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.

The Stock Market Is A No-called-strike Game. You Don’t Have To Swing At Everything – You Can Wait For Your Pitch.

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

We Rarely Use Much Debt And, When We Do, We Attempt To Structure It On A Long-term Fixed Rate Basis. We Will Reject Interesting Opportunities Rather Than Over-leverage Our Balance Sheet. This Conservatism Has Penalized Our Results But It Is The Only Behavior That Leaves Us Comfortable, Considering Our Fiduciary Obligations To Policyholders, Depositors, Lenders And The Many Equity Holders Who Have Committed Unusually Large Portions Of Their Net Worth To Our Care.

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.

I Mean, You Know, You're Not Going To Change The Human Animal. And The Human Animal Really Doesn't Get A Lot Smarter.

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.

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.

[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.

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.

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

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

Intensity Is The Price Of Excellence.

Goldman Sachs Saying They Might Be Interested In Such An Investment. I'm Familiar With The Company. I've Known The Management, The Current Management, Jack Welch Before Jeff Immelt. I've Known Him For Decades.

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

Investment Decision Should Be Made On The Basis Of The Most Probable Compounding Of After-tax Net Worth With Minimum Risk.

Diversification Is Protection Against Ignorance. It Makes Little Sense If You Know What You Are Doing.

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.

We Always Live In An Uncertain World. What Is Certain Is That The United States Will Go Forward Over Time.

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

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.

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

I Never Try To Predict The Market.

Failing Conventionally Is The Route To Go; As A Group, Lemmings May Have A Rotten Image, But No Individual Lemming Has Ever Received Bad Press

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

Learning How To Live Is Much More Important Than Learning How To Make A Living.

Inspirational Life

The Obligation Of A Society As Prosperous As Ours Is To Figure Out How Nobody Gets Left Too Far Behind.

The Time To Buy Stocks Is Consistently Over Time. You Should Never Buy Your Investments With The Idea, 'i Have To Get A Certain Return.' You Should Look At The Best Return Possible And Learn To Live With That. But You Should Not Try To Make Your Investments Earn What You Feel You Need. It Doesn't Work That Way. The Stock Doesn't Know You Own It.

A Contrarian Approach Is Just As Foolish As A Follow-the-crowd Strategy. What's Required Is Thinking Rather Than Polling.

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 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.

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.

It Takes 20 Years To Build A Reputation And Five Minutes To Ruin It. If You Think About That, You'll Do Things Differently.

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.

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.

Investing Money

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

I Don't Try And Guess When To Get In And Out Of The Market. I Have Owned Stocks Consistently Since 1942. I Owned The - I Was Buying Stocks The Day Before The Election. I Was Buying The Same Stocks The Day After Election. And If Hillary Had Been Elected, It Would Have Been The Same Thing.

We Have A Country Where I Don't Know Whether It's A Million Households A Year Or More, But Good Form.

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.

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