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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.

-Warren Buffett

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We Set No Volume

Warren Buffett

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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.

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The Dumbest Reason In The World To Buy A Stock Is Because It's Going Up.

Don't Settle For Anything Other Than Your Passion - If You're Lucky Enough To Find It.

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.

Is Management Rational?

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.

Read Ben Graham And Phil Fisher Read Annual Reports, But Don't Do Equations With Greek Letters In Them.

It Is More Important To Say "no" To An Opportunity, Than To Say "yes".

You Have No Ability, If You're A Financial Institution And You're Threatened With Criminal Prosecution, You Have No Ability To Negotiate.

The Only Question Is Whether You’re Going To Do It Today Or Tomorrow. If You Keep Saying You’re Going To Do It Tomorrow, You’ll Never Do It. You Have To Get On It Today.

Emotional Makeup Is More Important Than Technical Skill

Larger Sums May Be An Advantage At Some Cases And A Disadvantage At Others.

It's Much Easier To Stay Out Of Trouble Now Than To Get Out Of Trouble Later.

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.

We Intend To Continue Our Practice Of Working Only With People Whom We Like And Admire. This Policy Not Only Maximizes Our Chances For Good Results, It Also Ensures Us An Extraordinarily Good Time.

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.

It Is To Our Advantage To Have Securities Do Nothing Price-wise For Months, Or Perhaps Years, While We Are Buying Them.

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

If You Don’t Feel Comfortable Making A Rough Estimate Of The Asset’s Future Earnings, Just Forget It And Move On. No One Has The Ability To Evaluate Every Investment Possibility. But Omniscience Isn’t Necessary; You Only Need To Understand The Actions You Undertake.

I Can Do Anything I Want, Basically, As Long As It Doesn't Involve Athletic Ability, Or Something Like That.

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.

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.

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.

... Not Doing What We Love In The Name Of Greed Is Very Poor Management Of Our Lives.

Investment Success

Just Imagine Living On 21,000 A Year. I Mean You Have 20 Percent Of The Population Doing That. So You Don't Have To Worry About Guys Like Me.

The Difference Between Successful People And Really Successful People Is That Really Successful People Say No To Almost Everything.

I Mean, You May Be Very Mad At Some Guy That Walked Away With A Huge Golden Parachute, But That Really Isn't The Important Thing.

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

Making Money Isn't The Backbone Of Our Guiding Purpose; It Is The By-product Of Our Guiding Purpose.

You Know, People Talk About This Being An Uncertain Time. You Know, All Time Is Uncertain. I Mean, It Was Uncertain Back In - In 2007, We Just Didn't Know It Was Uncertain. It Was - Uncertain On September 10th, 2001. It Was Uncertain On October 18th, 1987, You Just Didn't Know It.

Uncertain Times

Equities Will Do Well Over Time - You Just Have To Avoid Getting Excited When Other People Are Getting Excited.

I Think That Trying To Invest Through 535 People Is A Tough Job, You Know, And So I Would Give More Latitude.

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

If You Want To Shoot Rare, Fast-moving Elephants, You Should Always Carry A Loaded Gun.

[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.

The First Rule Is Not To Lose. The Second Rule Is Not To Forget The First Rule.

Investment Philosophy Is The Clear Understanding That By Owning Shares Of Stocks He Owns Businesses, Not Pieces Of Paper.

There Are Three Kinds Of People: 1. Innovators. 2. Imitators. 3. Idiots.

As Of 1992, In Fact-though The Picture Would Have Improved Since Then-the Money That Had Been Made Since The Dawn Of Aviation By All Of This Country's Airline Companies Was Zero. Absolutely Zero.

Airline Business

In The Long Run Managements Stressing Accounting Appearance Over Economic Substance Usually Achieve Little Of Either.

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

There Are All Kinds Of Businesses That Charlie And I Don't Understand, But That Doesn't Cause Us To Stay Up At Night. It Just Means We Go On To The Next One, And That's What The Individual Investor Should Do.

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.

Our Marketable Equities Tell Us By Their Operating Results - Not By Their Daily, Or Even Yearly, Price Quotations - Whether Our Investments Are Successful. The Market May Ignore Business Success For A While, But Eventually Will Confirm It.

Business Success

The American Worker Is More Productive Than He's Ever Been.

American Workers

Ben's Mr. Market Allegory May Seem Out-of-date In Today's Investment World, In Which Most Professionals And Academicians Talk Of Efficient Markets, Dynamic Hedging And Betas. Their Interest In Such Matters Is Understandable, Since Techniques Shrouded In Mystery Clearly Have Value To The Purveyor Of Investment Advice. After All, What Witch Doctor Has Ever Achieved Fame And Fortune By Simply Advising 'take Two Aspirins'?

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.

There's Nothing Inappropriate About Having Debt In America. It's What Helped Us Grow Over Time. And It's When Debt Gets Out Of Control That You Worry.

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.

I Happen To Have A Talent For Allocating Capital. But My Ability To Use That Talent Is Completely Dependent On The Society I Was Born Into. If I'd Been Born Into A Tribe Of Hunters, This Talent Of Mine Would Be Pretty Worthless. I Can't Run Very Fast. I'm Not Particularly Strong. I'd Probably End Up As Some Wild Animal's Dinner.

Always Invest For The Long Term.

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.

I Have Pledged - To You, The Rating Agencies And Myself - To Always Run Berkshire With More Than Ample Cash. We Never Want To Count On The Kindness Of Strangers In Order To Meet Tomorrow's Obligations. When Forced To Choose, I Will Not Trade Even A Night's Sleep For The Chance Of Extra Profits.

I Do Not Believe In Inheriting Your Position In Society Based On Which Womb You Come From... I Think A Rich Person Should Leave His Children Enough So They Can Do Anything, But Not Enough So They Can Do Nothing.

Outstanding Long-term Results Are Produced Primarily By Avoiding Dumb Decisions, Rather Than By Making Brilliant Ones.

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.

An Argument Is Made That There Are Just Too Many Question Marks About The Near Future; Wouldn't It Be Better To Wait Until Things Clear Up A Bit? You Know The Prose: "maintain Buying Reserves Until Current Uncertainties Are Resolved," Etc. Before Reaching For That Crutch, Face Up To Two Unpleasant Facts: The Future Is Never Clear And You Pay A Very High Price For A Cheery Consensus. Uncertainty Actually Is The Friend Of The Buyer Of Long-term Values.

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

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.

Cash Combined With Courage In A Time Of Crisis Is Priceless.

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

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

Risk Comes From Not Knowing What You Are Doing So Wide Diversification Is Only Required When Investors Are Ignorant. You Only Have To Do A Very Few Things In Your Life So Long As You Don't Do Too Many Things Wrong.

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.

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.

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

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.

Managers Thinking About Accounting Issues Should Never Forget One Of Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Riddles: How Many Legs Does A Dog Have, If You Call A Tail A Leg? The Answer: Four, Because Calling A Tail A Leg Doesn't Make It A Leg.

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

I Mean The Truth Is, I've Never Had It So Good In Terms Of Taxes. I Am Paying The Lowest Tax Rate That I've Ever Paid In My Life.

Traditional Wisdom Is Long On Tradition And Short On Wisdom.

In Investing, Just As In Baseball, To Put Runs On The Scoreboard, One Must Watch The Playing Field, Not The Scoreboard.

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

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.

It Is Easier To Rationalize Than It Is To Be Rational.

Lethargy, Bordering On Sloth Should Remain The Cornerstone Of An Investment Style.

We Still Find Very Few [stocks] That Even Mildly Interest Us. That Dismal Fact Is Testimony To The Insanity Of Valuations Reached During The Great Bubble. Unfortunately, The Hangover May Prove To Be Proportional To The Binge.

I Look For Businesses In Which I Think I Can Predict What They're Going To Look Like In Ten To Fifteen Years Time. Take Wrigley's Chewing Gum. I Don't Think The Internet Is Going To Change How People Chew Gum.

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

You Can't Produce A Baby In One Month By Getting Nine Women Pregnant.

Investing Money

Would Your Reply Possibly Be This? Well, It All Depends On What My Tax Rate Will Be On The Gain You're Saying We're Going To Make. If The Taxes Are Too High, I Would Rather Leave The Money In My Savings Account, Earning A Quarter Of 1 Percent. Only In Grover Norquist's Imagination Does Such A Response Exist.

We Have To Live With The Rest Of The World. And It's A Mistake, In My View. Trade Has Generally Developed In This Country. We Actually Export 12 Or 13 Percent Of Our Gdp. It Was Only 5 Percent In 1970. But It Benefits Us. It Benefits The Rest Of The World. It Doesn't Benefit The Steelworker Maybe In Ohio. And That's The Problem That Has To Be Addressed, Because When You Have Something That's Good For Society, But Terribly Harmful For Given Individuals, We Have Got To Make Sure Those Individuals Are Taken Care Of.

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.

Take The Probability Of Loss Times The Amount Of Possible Loss From The Probability Of Gain Times The Amount Of Possible Gain. That Is What We're Trying To Do. It's Imperfect, But That's What It's All About.

I Am Out Of Step With Present Conditions. When The Game Is No Longer Played Your Way, It Is Only Human To Say The New Approach Is All Wrong, Bound To Lead To Trouble, And So On. On One Point, However, I Am Clear. I Will Not Abandon A Previous Approach Whose Logic I Understand ( Although I Find It Difficult To Apply ) Even Though It May Mean Foregoing Large, And Apparently Easy, Profits To Embrace An Approach Which I Don't Fully Understand, Have Not Practiced Successfully, And Which Possibly Could Lead To Substantial Permanent Loss Of Capital.

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.

It's Us Fun Being A Horse When The Tractor Comes Along, Or The Blacksmith When The Car Comes Along.

The Best Asset Is Your Own Self. You Can Become To An Enormous Degree The Person You Want To Be

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

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.

Never Count On Making A Good Sale. Have The Purchase Price Be So Attractive That Even A Mediocre Sale Gives Good Results.

If You've Got A Good Enough Business, If You Have A Monopoly Newspaper, If You Have A Network Television Station - I'm Talking Of The Past - You Know, Your Idiot Nephew Could Run It. And If You've Got A Really Good Business, It Doesn't Make Any Difference.

I Asked Him What He Wanted To Do For His Career, And He Replied That He Wanted To Go Into A Particular Field, But Thought He Should Work For Mckinsey For A Few Years First To Add To His Resume. To Me That's Like Saving Sex For Your Old Age. It Makes No Sense.

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

Guarantees That

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.")

I'll Tell You Why I Like The Cigarette Business. It Cost A Penny To Make. Sell It For A Dollar. It's Addictive. And There's A Fantastic Brand Loyalty.

Never Depend On A Single Source Of Income.

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.

If You Own The Only Newspaper In Town, Up Until The Last Five Years Or So, You Have Pricing Power And You Didn't Have To Go To The Office.

The Market System Rewards Me Outlandishly For What I Do, But That Doesn't Mean I'm Any More Deserving Of A Good Life Than A Teacher Or A Doctor Or Someone Who Fights In Afghanistan.

After 25 Years Of Buying And Supervising A Great Variety Of Businesses, Charlie [munger] And I Have Not Learned How To Solve Difficult Business Problems. What We Have Learned Is To Avoid Them. To The Extent We Have Been Successful, It Is Because We Have Concentrated On Identifying One-foot Hurdles That We Could Step Over Rather Than Because We Acquired Any Ability To Clear Seven-footers.

Americans Are In A Cycle Of Fear Which Leads To People Not Wanting To Spend And Not Wanting To Make Investments, And That Leads To More Fear. We'll Break Out Of It. It Takes Time.

A Company Should Be Viewed As An Unfolding Movie, Not As A Still Photograph

I Learned To Go Into Business Only With People Whom I Like, Trust, And Admire.

If Some Institution Wants To Sell You A Billion Dollars Worth Of Mortgages, They Might Have To Sell 100 Million In The Market, And Then You'll Buy The Other 900 Million On The Same Terms. Now, The Very Fact That This Has Been Authorized Or Will Be Authorized, I Hope, Will Firm Up The Market To Some Degree. And That's Fine. But You Don't Want To Have Artificial Prices Being Paid.

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

Ignore The Stock Market, Ignore The Economy, And Buy A Business You Understand.

If You Knew What Was Going To Happen In The Economy, You Still Wouldn't Necessarily Know What Was Going To Happen In The Stock Market.

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.

Beware Of Geeks Bearing Formulas.

If You Don't Know Jewelry, Know The Jeweler.

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

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.

It's Nice To Have A Lot Of Money, But You Know, You Don't Want To Keep It Around Forever. I Prefer Buying Things. Otherwise, It's A Little Like Saving Sex For Your Old Age.

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.

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

It's Easier To Create Money Than To Spend It.

The Managers At Fault Periodically Report On The Lesson They Have Learned From The Latest Disappointment. They Then Usually Seek Out Future Lessons.

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

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

Passion For What You Do

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

The Trick Is, When There Is Nothing To Do, Do Nothing.

Of One Thing Be Certain: If A Ceo Is Enthused About A Particularly Foolish Acquisition, Both His Internal Staff And His Outside Advisors Will Come Up With Whatever Projections Are Needed To Justify His Stance. Only In Fairy Tales Are Emperors Told That They Are Naked.

I Know That Congress Will Do The Right Thing.

Somebody's Buying These Treasury Bills At 1/20th Of One Percent. Consuming About $2 Billion A Day Of Goods And Services Beyond What We're Producing. In Other Words, The Rest Of The World Sends About $2 Billion A Day Net Of Something.we Got To Send Them Something In Return, Don't We. So We Send Them Little Pieces Of Paper.

If You Want Your Business To Survive For 100 Years, You've Got To Make It Through Every Single Day For 100 Years. It's Not Enough To Do It 99.9% Of The Time.

Writing Checks To The Irs That Include Strings Of Zeros Does Not Bother Me ... Overall, We Feel Extraordinarily Lucky To Have Been Dealt A Hand In Life That Enables Us To Write Large Checks To The Government Rather Than One Requiring The Government To Regularly Write Checks To Us-say, Because We Are Disabled Or Unemployed.

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.

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

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.

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

The Happiest People Do Not Necessarily Have The Best Things. They Simply Appreciate The Things They Have.

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

The Most Important Quality For An Investor Is Temperament, Not Intellect.

I Think You Should Read Everything You Can. In My Case, By The Age Of 10, I'd Read Every Book In The Omaha Public Library About Investing, Some Twice. You Need To Fill Your Mind With Various Competing Thoughts And Decide Which Make Sense.

So If You Are Evaluating Others (or Yourself!) In The Investment Field, Think Out Some Standards - Apply Them - Interpret Them.

A Prediction About The Direction Of The Stock Market Tells You Nothing About Where Stocks Are Headed, But A Whole Lot About The Person Doing The Predicting.

We Make Investment Decisions Based On Our Evaluation Of The Most Profitable Combination Of Probabilities.

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

I’ve Never Believed In Risking What My Family And Friends Have And Need In Order To Pursue What They Don’t Have And Don’t Need.

Family And Friends

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.

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 Always See Shifts In Employment. If You Think About It, If You Go Back To 1800, It Took 80 Percent Of The Labor Force To Produce Enough Food For The Country. Now It Takes Less Than 3 Percent. Well, The Truth Is That Market Systems Move People Around.

Never Test The Depth Of River With Both The Feet.

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.

We Look For Things I Can Understand. A Lot Of Businesses I Don't Understand.

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

Inspirational Life

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

You've Got The Right - You've Got A Wonderful Person With Sheila Bair, Most Of The Viewers Have Never Heard Of Sheila Bair. [she] Has Taken Eight Percent Of The Deposits In The United States And Seamlessly Moved Those Over To Sound Institutions Which In Turn Have Gotten More Capital, Ended Up, It's Been A Magnificent Job.she'll Never Get A Golden Parachute Or Any Severance Pay Or Anything. She's Done A Great Job. We've Got Some Great Public Servants. We Have I Think The Right People In There To Get The Job Done, And Then They Need More Tools.

We Have Learned To Turn Out Lots Of Goods And Services, But We Haven't Learned As Well How To Have Everybody Share In The Bounty. The Obligation Of A Society As Prosperous As Ours Is To Figure Out How Nobody Gets Left Too Far Behind.

What Could Be More Advantageous In An Intellectual Contest - Whether It Be Chess, Bridge, Or Stock Selection - Than To Have Opponents Who Have Been Taught That Thinking Is A Waste Of Energy?

You Know, With Your Money And My Brains, I Mean, There's No Telling How Far We'd Go.

When People Talk About Cash Being King, It's Not King If It Just Sits There And Never Does Anything.

We've Had Public Companies In The Past In That Business And They Bleed. We've Got A Lot More Blood Than They Do.

I Have Three Boxes On My Desk: In, Out, And Too Hard.

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.

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.

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

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.

Confidence In Markets And In Institutions, It's A Lot Like Oxygen. When You Have It, You Don't Even Think About It. It's Indispensable. You Can Go Years Without Thinking About It. When It's Gone For Five Minutes, It's The Only Thing To Think About.

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

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

Words Of Wisdom

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.

The Most Important Quality For An Investor Is Temperament, Not Intellect. You Need A Temperament That Neither Derives Great Pleasure From Being With The Crowd Or Against The Crowd.

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

I Insist On A Lot Of Time Being Spent, Almost Every Day, To Just Sit And Think. That Is Very Uncommon In American Business.

You Can't Buy What Is Popular And Do Well.

You Really Don't Need Leverage In This World Much. If You're Smart, You're Going To Make A Lot Of Money Without Borrowing. I've Never Borrowed A Significant Amount Of Money In My Life. Never. Never Will. I've Got No Interest In It.

The Stock Market Is Designed To Transfer Money From The Active To The Patient.

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

The Truth Is, Everything That Has Happened In My Life... That I Thought Was A Crushing Event At The Time, Has Turned Out For The Better.

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.

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.

Our Approach Is Very Much Profiting From Lack Of Change Rather Than From Change.

Investing Money

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.

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.

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

If You Expect To Continue To Purchase Stocks Throughout Your Life, You Should Welcome Price Declines As A Way To Add Stocks More Cheaply To Your Portfolio.

There's No Use Running If You're On The Wrong Road.

I've Never Been Very Fully Employed Either.

Problems In A Company Are Like Cockroaches In The Kitchen. You Will Never Find Just One

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.

It's A Good Idea To Review Past Mistakes Before Committing New Ones.

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

A Single Year's Performance Is Of Minor Importance And, Good Or Bad, Should Never Be Taken Seriously.

America Should Stand For More Than Just Wealth.

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.

Very Successful People Say No To Almost Everything.

Investment Success

Writing A Check Separates A Commitment From A Conversation.

It's Better To Build Than To Buy If You Can Find The Right People.

I Get To Do What I Like To Do Every Single Day Of The Year.

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

If You Own A Wonderful Business...the Best Thing To Do Is Keep It. All You're Going To Do Is Trade Your Wonderful Business For A Whole Bunch Of Cash, Which Isn't As Good As The Business, And You Got The Problem Of Investing In Other Businesses, And You Probably Paid A Tax In Between. So My Advice To Anybody Who Owns A Wonderful Business Is Keep It.

Buy A Business, Don't Rent Stocks.

Of Our 49 Billion, We Haven't Moved Any To Bitcoin

Games Are Won By Players Who Focus On The Playing Field -- Not By Those Whose Eyes Are Glued To The Scoreboard.

When You Listen To Tax-cut Rhetoric, Remember That Giving One Class Of Taxpayer A Break Requires - Now Or Down The Line - That An Equivalent Burden Be Imposed On Other Parties. In Other Words, If I Get A Break, Someone Else Pays. Government Can't Deliver A Free Lunch To The Country As A Whole. It Can However, Determine Who Pays For Lunch.

Only Buy Something That You'd Be Perfectly Happy To Hold If The Market Shut Down For 10 Years.

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

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.

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

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