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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.

-Warren Buffett

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We Try To Exert

Warren Buffett

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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.

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There Is No Question We Have An Access Stock.

You Can't Help Some Increase From This Point. I Don't Want Any Viewer To Go Away Think A Magic Wand Exists In Congress. So They're Going To See Some More Bad News. But If We Do This, We're Doing The Right Thing.

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.

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

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).

I Won't Close Down A Business Of Subnormal Profitability Merely To Add A Fraction Of A Point To Our Corporate Returns. I Also Feel It Inappropriate For Even An Exceptionally Profitable Company To Fund An Operation Once It Appears To Have Unending Losses In Prospect. Adam Smith Would Disagree With My First Proposition And Karl Marx Would Disagree With My Second; The Middle Ground Is The Only Position That Leaves Me Comfortable.

Buy Stocks Like You Buy Your Groceries, Not Like You Buy Your Perfume.

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

I Knew A Lot About What I Did When I Was 20. I Had Read A Lot, And I Aspired To Learn Everything I Could About The Subject.

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.

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

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

The Truth Is That I've Got All My Net Worth Safely In Berkshire And I Will Never Sell A Share So There Is No One More Concerned About What Happens After My Death Than I Am.

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

I Always Say That In Investing You Want To Buy Stock In A Company That Has A Business That's So Good That An Idiot Can Run It, Because Sooner Or Later One Will. We Have A Country Like That.

Market Prices For Stocks Fluctuate At Great Amplitudes Around Intrinsic Value But, Over The Long Term, Intrinsic Value Is Virtually Always Reflected At Some Point In Market Price.

Intrinsic Value

We've Got More Productive Capacity Now Than We Ever Have.

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

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

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

America Should Stand For More Than Just Wealth.

What The Human Being Is Best At Doing Is Interpreting All New Information So That Their Prior Conclusions Remain Intact.

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.

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

What We Really Want To Do Is Buy Businesses That We Would Be Happy To Own Forever.

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

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

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.

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

First, Many In Wall Street - A Community In Which Quality Control Is Not Prized - Will Sell Investors Anything They Will Buy.

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.

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

The Problem With Commodities Is That You Are Betting On What Someone Else Would Pay For Them In Six Months. The Commodity Itself Isn't Going To Do Anything For You....it Is An Entirely Different Game To Buy A Lump Of Something And Hope That Somebody Else Pays You More For That Lump Two Years From Now Than It Is To Buy Something That You Expect To Produce Income For You Over Time.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Don't Invest In Pieces Of Papers (stocks), Invest In Great Businesses Underlying Them

What Motivates Most Gold Purchasers Is Their Belief That The Ranks Of The Fearful Will Grow. During The Past Decade That Belief Has Proved Correct. Beyond That, The Rising Price Has On Its Own Generated Additional Buying Enthusiasm, Attracting Purchasers Who See The Rise As Validating An Investment Thesis. As 'bandwagon' Investors Join Any Party, They Create Their Own Truth - For A While.

Possessing A Powerful Worldwide Brand Is Essential For Sustained Success.

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

An Investor Should Act As Though He Had A Lifetime Decision Card With Just Twenty Punches On It.

I Never Try To Predict The Market.

Intensity Is The Price Of Excellence.

In The Financial Markets I Find It Easy To Predict What Will Happen And Very Difficult To Predict When It Will Happen. I Think That Things Were Clear During The Bubble As To What Would Happen Eventually.

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.

Asset-heavy Businesses Generally Earn Low Rates Of Return - Rates That Often Barely Provide Enough Capital To Fund The Inflationary Needs Of The Existing Business, With Nothing Left Over For Real Growth, For Distribution To Owners, Or For Acquisition Of New Businesses

You Should Invest Like A Catholic Marries: For Life.

It Makes A Difference Who The Treasury Secretary Is.

Making A Difference

You Shouldn't Own Common Stocks If A 50 Per Cent Decrease In Their Value In A Short Period Of Time Would Cause You Acute Distress.

Investing Your Time

It Is Madness To Risk Losing What You Need In Pursuing What You Simply Desire.

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Turnarounds Seldom Turn.

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.

There Is Nothing Like Writing To Force You To Think And Get Your Thoughts Straight.

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

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.

Activity Is The Enemy Of Investment Returns.

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

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

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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.

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.

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

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

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 Tell College Students, When You Get To Be My Age You Will Be Successful If The People Who You Hope To Have Love You, Do Love You.

A Public-opinion Poll Is No Substitute For Thought.

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

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

I Was Lucky To Have The Right Heroes. Tell Me Who Your Heroes Are And I'll Tell You How You'll Turn Out To Be. The Qualities Of The One You Admire Are The Traits That You, With A Little Practice, Can Make Your Own, And That, If Practiced, Will Become Habit Forming.

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

I Don't Like What's Going On With The Executive Compensation.

Executive Compensation

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

The Best Thing I Did Was Choose The Right Heroes.

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I Have Always Cautioned Partners That I Considered Three Years A Minimum In Determining Whether We Were "performing".

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

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.

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.

Success In Investing Doesn’t Correlate With I.q. Once You Are Above The Level Of 25; Once You Have Ordinary Intelligence, What You Need Is The Temperament To Control The Urges That Get Other People Into Trouble In Investing.

I Look At Everything. That's My Job. I Really Do, Every Day. I Think About Everything.

Focus On Return On Equity, Not Earnings Per Share.

Either They're Trying To Con You Or They're Trying To Con Themselves.

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 Have Worked With Investors For 60 Years And I Have Yet To See Anyone - Not Even When Capital Gains Rates Were 39.9 Percent In 1976-77 - Shy Away From A Sensible Investment Because Of The Tax Rate On The Potential Gain.

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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 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.

One Observer Commenting On Security Analysts Over Forty Stated: "they Know Too Many Things That Are No Longer True." As Long As I Am "on Stage", Publishing A Regular Record And Assuming Responsibility For Management Of What Amounts To Virtually 100% Of The Net Worth Of Many Partners, I Will Never Be Able To Put Sustained Effort Into Any Non-bpl Activity. If I Am Going To Participate Publicly. I Can't Help Being Competitive. I Know I Don't Want To Be Totally Occupied With Out-pacing An Investment Rabbit All My Life. The Only Way To Slow Down Is To Stop.

I Was Lucky Enough To Be Born In A Time And Place Where Society Values My Talent, And Gave Me A Good Education To Develop That Talent, And Set Up The Laws And The Finanical System To Let Me Do What I Love Doing-and Make A Lot Of Money Doing It. The Least I Can Do Is Help Pay For All That.

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

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

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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.

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

I'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.

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

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

Investing Your Time

Anyone Who Believes A Growth Rate In Excess Of 15% Per Annum Over The Long Term Is Attainable Should Pursue A Career In Sales, But Avoid One In Mathematics.

Life Is Like A Snowball. The Important Thing Is Finding Wet Snow And A Really Long Hill.

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.

If You Lose Money For The Firm, I Will Be Forgiving. If You Lose Reputation, I Will Be Ruthless.

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.

I Mean, We'll Be Pounding On The Guy's Chest, You Know, On The Floor, And You Know, He's Not Going To Just Jump Up All Of A Sudden. So It Makes It Tough. I Mean, It's Tough To Be In The Legislature, You Know, And Vote For Something And Then People Say, Well, You Voted All This Money And You Know, It's All Getting Spent. It Isn't Getting Spent. It's Getting Invested. But It's All Getting Spent. Nothing's Happening.

I'd Rather Have A $10 Million Business Making 15 Per Cent Than A $100 Million Business Making 5 Per Cent.

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

I Think That Actually People In My Situation Should Be Paying More Tax.

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.

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

[w]e Think The Very Term 'value Investing' Is Redundant. What Is 'investing' If It Is Not The Act Of Seeking Value At Least Sufficient To Justify The Amount Paid? Consciously Paying More For A Stock Than Its Calculated Value -- In The Hope That It Can Soon Be Sold For A Still-higher Price -- Should Be Labeled Speculation (which Is Neither Illegal, Immoral Nor -- In Our View -- Financially Fattening).

Accounting Consequences Do Not Influence Our Operating Or Capital-allocation Decisions. When Acquisition Costs Are Similar, We Much Prefer To Purchase $2 Of Earnings That Is Not Reportable By Us Under Standard Accounting Principles Than To Purchase $1 Of Earnings That Is Reportable.

The Patient That's On The Floor With The Cardiac Arrest Is Not Wall Street. It's The American Economy.

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.

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

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.

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 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%.

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.

It's Easy To Identify Many Investment Managers With Great Recent Records. But Past Results, Though Important, Do Not Suffice When Prospective Performance Is Being Judged. How The Record Has Been Achieved Is Crucial.

Stop Trying To Predict The Direction Of The Stock Market, The Economy Or Elections.

We're Paying Maybe 25 Percent Of The Income Tax, But The Payroll Tax Is Over A Third Of The Receipts Of The Federal Government. And They Don't Take That From Me On Capital Gains. They Don't Take That From Me On Dividends.

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.

Never Give Up Searching For The Job That You’re Passionate About. Try To Find The Job You’d Have If You Were Independently Rich. Forget About The Pay. 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

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

The Only Way To Get Love Is To Be Lovable. It's Very Irritating If You Have A Lot Of Money. You'd Like To Think You Could Write A Check: "i'll Buy A Million Dollars' Worth Of Love." But It Doesn't Work That Way. The More You Give Love Away, The More You Get.

The Smarter The Journalists Are, The Better Off Society Is.

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.

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

American Workers

Never Test The Depth Of River With Both The Feet.

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.

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

You Could Take All The Gold That's Ever Been Mined, And It Would Fill A Cube 67 Feet In Each Direction. For What That's Worth At Current Gold Prices, You Could Buy All -- Not Some -- All Of The Farmland In The United States. Plus, You Could Buy 10 Exxon Mobils, Plus Have $1 Trillion Of Walking-around Money. Or You Could Have A Big Cube Of Metal. Which Would You Take? Which Is Going To Produce More Value?

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.

The Best Thing That Happens To Us Is When A Great Company Gets Into Temporary Trouble...we Want To Buy Them When They're On The Operating Table.

Investing Money

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.

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.

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

The Banking Business Is No Favorite Of Ours. When Assets Are Twenty Times Equity - A Common Ratio In This Industry - Mistakes That Involve Only A Small Portion Of Assets Can Destroy A Major Portion Of Equity. And Mistakes Have Been The Rule Rather Than The Exception At Many Major Banks.

Anything Can Happen Anytime In Markets. And No Advisor, Economist, Or Tv Commentator-and Definitely Not Charlie Nor I-can Tell You When Chaos Will Occur. Market Forecasters Will Fill Your Ear But Will Never Fill Your Wallet.

That Which Is Not Worth Doing At All Is Not Worth Doing Well.

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

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

Focus On Your Customers And Lead Your People As Though Their Lives Depend On Your Success.

There Is No Perfect Mathematical Formula For Pricing A Business.

I've Seen More People Fail Because Of Liquor And Leverage -- Leverage Being Borrowed Money. 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.

Investing Money

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.

The (stock) Market Is There Only As A Reference Point To See If Anybody Is Offering To Do Anything Foolish. When We Invest In Stocks, We Invest In Businesses.

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

Investment Success

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

Guarantees That

Take The Job You Would Take If You Were Independently Wealthy. You're Going To Do Well At It.

It's Better To Hang Out With People Better Than You. Pick Out Associates Whose Behavior Is Better Than Yours And You'll Drift In That Direction.

The Nature Of Democracy Is Such That When There's - There'll Be Revulsion, Obviously, Towards - That's Never Going To Happen Again.

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

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.

Returns Decrease As Motion Increases.

My Job Is Essentially Just Corralling More And More And More Facts And Information, And Occasionally Seeing Whether That Leads To Some Action.

The Best Investment You Can Make Is In Yourself.

Investment Success

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

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

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.

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

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

A Newspaper That Reduces Its Coverage Of The News Important To Its Community Is Certain To Reduce Its Readership As Well

Our Favorite Holding Period Is Forever.

Funny Inspirational

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.

There Are Three Important Principles To Graham's Approach. [the First Is To Look At Stocks As Fractional Shares Of A Business, Which] Gives You An Entirely Different View Than Most People Who Are In The Market. [the Second Principle Is The Margin-of-safety Concept, Which] Gives You The Competitive Advantage. [the Third Is Having A True Investor's Attitude Toward The Stock Market, Which] If You Have That Attitude, You Start Out Ahead Of 99 Percent Of All The People Who Are Operating In The Stock Market - It's An Enormous Advantage.

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

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

Investing Money

If You’re In The Luckiest One Per Cent Of Humanity, You Owe It To The Rest Of Humanity To Think About The Other 99 Per Cent.

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.

Mr. Market Is Kind Of A Drunken Psycho. Some Days He Gets Very Enthused, Some Days He Gets Very Depressed. And When He Get Really Enthused You Sell To Him, And If He Gets Depressed, You Buy From Him. There's No Moral Taint Attached To That.

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

People Should Always Know Better.

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.

Never Invest In A Business You Can't Understand

I Certainly Have No Desire To Sell A Good Controlled Business Run By People I Like And Admire, Merely To Obtain A Fancy Price. However, Specific Conditions May Cause The Sale Of One Operating Unit At Some Point.

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

Inflation Could Be A Very - Is A Likely Consequence Out Of What's Going On Now.

Our Policy Is To Concentrate Holdings. We Try To Avoid Buying A Little Of This Or That When We Are Only Lukewarm About The Business Or Its Price. When We Are Convinced As To Attractiveness, We Believe In Buying Worthwhile Amounts.

Cash, Though, Is To A Business As Oxygen Is To An Individual: Never Thought About When It Is Present, The Only Thing In Mind When It Is Absent... When Bills Come Due, Only Cash Is Legal Tender. Don't Leave Home Without It.

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.

Let Only Individuals Contribute - With Sensible Limits Per Election. Otherwise, We Are Well On Our Way To Ensuring That A Government Of The Moneyed, By The Moneyed, And For The Moneyed Shall Not Perish From The Earth.

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

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

At Age 19, I Read A Book [the Intelligent Investor] And What I'm Doing Today, At Age 76, Is Running Things Through The Same Thought Process I Learned From The Book I Read At 19.

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.

When A Management With A Reputation For Brilliance Tackles A Business With A Reputation For Bad Economics, It Is The Reputation Of The Business That Remains Intact.

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Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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