Background Image
...
Whether We’re Talking About Socks Or Stocks, I Like Buying Quality Merchandise When It Is Marked Down.
-Warren Buffett
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

Whether We’re Talking About

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

Understanding the Quote: "whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, i like buying quality merchandise..."

This quote by Warren Buffett reflects deeply on the theme of investing money. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Investing Money, Talking, Quality, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Warren Buffett interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is celebrated for insightful thoughts on investing money and talking. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 9
Topic
Investing Money
Talking
Quality
More From Warren Buffett
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.
People
Wish
Quality
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.
Opportunity
Track
Missing
Only Buy Something That You'd Be Perfectly Happy To Hold If The Market Shut Down For 10 Years.
Inspirational
Success
Money
Do Not Save What Is Left After Spending, But Spend What Is Left After Saving.
Inspirational
Life
Money
There's No Use Running If You're On The Wrong Road.
Running
What Matters
Use
The Business Schools Reward Difficult Complex Behavior More Than Simple Behavior, But Simple Behavior Is More Effective.
Business
War
School
Life Is Like A Snowball. The Important Thing Is Finding Wet Snow And A Really Long Hill.
Long
Snow
Important
If Anything, Taxes For The Lower And Middle Class And Maybe Even The Upper-middle Class Should Even Probably Be Cut Further. But I Think That People At The High End - People Like Myself - Should Be Paying A Lot More In Taxes. We Have It Better Than We've Ever Had It.
Cutting
Thinking
Class
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.
Share
Figures
Obligation
It Will Be Good For Us In The Long Run, And I Mean There Are, You Know, Six And A Half Billion People In This World. And It's Great For 300 Million To Keep Enjoying More And More Property, But I Think It's Terrific If, You Know, The Remainder Do.
Running
Mean
Thinking
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.
Knowing
Long
Risk
Always Associate Yourself With People Who Are Better Than You.
Kayaking
People
Investing
The Good Thing Is, We Have Household Formation In This Country.
Country
Good Things
Household
If You Owe Money, You Can't Pay Them Out. You Just Pay For Everything, You Do Smart Things, You Eventually Get Very Rich.
Smart
Pay
Rich
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.
Naked
Acquisition
Fairy Tale
The Ability To Say No Is A Tremendous Advantage For An Investor.
Money
Investing
Advantage
The Most Important Investment You Can Make Is In Yourself... Nobody Can Tax It Or Take It Away From You.
Important
Investment
Away From You
Good Profits Simply Are Not Inconsistent With Good Behavior.
Life
Generosity
Behavior
It Takes 20 Years To Build A Reputation And Five Minutes To Ruin It. If You Think About That, You'll Do Things Differently.
Inspirational
Inspiring
Success
A Company Should Be Viewed As An Unfolding Movie, Not As A Still Photograph
Photograph
Should
Unfolding
Buy Stocks Like You Buy Your Groceries, Not Like You Buy Your Perfume.
Like You
Groceries
Perfume
If I Eat 2,700 Calories A Day, A Quarter Of That Is Coca-cola.
Coca Cola
Quarters
Calories
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.
Love You
People
Age
Read 500 Pages Every Day. That's How Knowledge Works. It Builds Up Like Compound Interest.
Pages
Interest
Working It
If You Hit A Hole In One Every Hole, You Wouldn’t Play Golf For Very Long.
Golf
Play
Long
I Made My First Investment At Age Eleven. I Was Wasting My Life Up Until Then.
Age
Firsts
Investment
People Went Crazy With Tulip Bulbs. They Went Crazy With The South Sea Bubble, They Went Crazy Internet Stocks, They Went Crazy With The Uranium Stocks Back When I Was First Getting Started.
Crazy
Sea
People
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.
Long
Pay
Buyers
For Example: (1) As If Governed By Newton's First Law Of Motion, An Institution Will Resist Any Change In Its Current Direction; (2) Just As Work Expands To Fill Available Time, Corporate Projects Or Acquisitions Will Materialize To Soak Up Available Funds; (3) Any Business Craving Of The Leader, However Foolish, Will Be Quickly Supported By Detailed Rate-of-return And Strategic Studies Prepared By His Troops; And (4) The Behavior Of Peer Companies, Whether They Are Expanding, Acquiring, Setting Executive Compensation Or Whatever, Will Be Mindlessly Imitated.
Law
Leader
Peers
Shares Are Not Mere Pieces Of Paper. They Represent Part Ownership Of A Business. So, When Contemplating An Investment, Think Like A Prospective Owner.
Thinking
Pieces
Paper
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.
Country
Mean
Average
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.
Machines
Investing
Return
I Am A Huge Bull On This Country. We Will Not Have A Double-dip Recession At All. I See Our Businesses Coming Back Almost Across The Board.
Country
Boards
Double Standard
It's Quite Clear That Stocks Are Cheaper Than Bonds. I Can't Imagine Anybody Having Bonds In Their Portfolio When They Can Own Equities, A Diversified Group Of Equities. But People Do Because They, The Lack Of Confidence. But That's What Makes For The Attractive Prices. If They Had Their Confidence Back, They Wouldn't Be Selling At These Prices. And Believe Me, It Will Come Back Over Time.
Believe
People
Portfolios
If This Is A War, My Side Has The Nuclear Bomb. We Have K Street. We Have Wall Street. Debbie Doesn't Have Anybody. I Want A Government That Is Responsive To The People Who Got The Short Straw In Life.
Wall
Fear
War
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.
Important
Quality
Needs
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
Advice
Succeed
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.
Jobs
Years
Mind
Nothing Sedates Rationality Like Large Doses Of Effortless Money.
Investing Money
Buffets
Rationality
A Public-opinion Poll Is No Substitute For Thought.
Life
War
Generosity
When A Management With Reputation For Brilliance Gets Hooked Up With A Business With A Reputation For Bad Economics, It's The Reputation Of The Business That Remains Intact.
Reputation
Management
Economics
If You Want To Shoot Rare, Fast-moving Elephants, You Should Always Carry A Loaded Gun.
Moving
Gun
Elephants
Focus On Return On Equity, Not Earnings Per Share.
Focus
Earning
Return
The Most Dangerous Distractions Are The Ones You Love, But That Don’t Love You Back.
Love You
Distraction
Dangerous
It Is Not Necessary To Do Extraordinary Things To Get Extraordinary Results.
Motivational
Investing
Buffets
I Prefer Liquor Store Robbers With Hungry Kids To Companies That Locate Offshore To Avoid U.s. Taxes.
Kids
Liquor Stores
Hungry
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.
Two
Long
Waiting
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.
Truth Is
Share
Concerned
Your Premium Brand Had Better Be Delivering Something Special, Or It's Not Going To Get The Business.
Life
Success
Business
Take Wrigley's Chewing Gum. I Don't Think The Internet Is Going To Change How People Chew Gum.
Thinking
People
Gum
The Dominant Factors Affecting Control Valuations Are Earning Power (past And Prospective) And Asset Values.
Past
Earning
Assets
What The Human Being Is Best At Doing Is Interpreting All New Information So That Their Prior Conclusions Remain Intact.
Information
Conclusion
Humans
Writing A Check Separates A Commitment From A Conversation.
Writing
Commitment
Checks
I've Learned Mainly By Reading Myself. So I Don't Think I Have Any Original Ideas. Certainly, I Talk About Reading Graham. I've Read Phil Fisher. So I've Gotten A Lot Of My Ideas From Reading. You Can Learn A Lot From Other People. In Fact, I Think If You Learn Basically From Other People, You Don't Have To Get Too Many New Ideas On Your Own. You Can Just Apply The Best Of What You See.
Reading
Thinking
Ideas
Look At Market Fluctuations As Your Friend Rather Than Your Enemy; Profit From Folly Rather Than Participate In It.
Investment Success
Enemy
Looks
I Have Never Been Able To Understand Why The Tax Comes As Such A Body Blow To Many People Since The Rate On Long-term Capital Gain Is Lower Than On Most Likes Of Endeavor (tax Policy Indicated Digging Ditches Is Regarded As Socially Less Desirable Than Shuffling Stock Certificates).
Blow
Long
People
Enjoy Your Work And Work For Whom You Admire.
Investing
Admire
Enjoy
Buy A Cross Section Of American Industry, And If A Cross Section Of American Industry Doesn't Work, Certainly Trying To Pick The Little Beauties Here And There Isn't Going To Work Either.
Trying
Littles
Here And There
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.
Long
Intrinsic Value
Term
Our Leaders Have Asked For “shared Sacrifice.” But When They Did The Asking, They Spared Me. I Checked With My Mega-rich Friends To Learn What Pain They Were Expecting. They, Too, Were Left Untouched.
Pain
Sacrifice
Leader
The Best Way In My View Is To Just Buy A Low-cost Index Fund And Keep Buying It Regularly Over Time, Because You'll Be Buying Into A Wonderful Industry, Which In Effect Is All Of American Industry... People Ought To Sit Back And Relax And Keep Accumulating Over Time.
Views
People
Relax
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.
Thinking
Magic
Going Away
Investment Decision Should Be Made On The Basis Of The Most Probable Compounding Of After-tax Net Worth With Minimum Risk.
Decision
Risk
Investment
Most Business Mistakes Are Irreversible Setbacks, But You Get Another Chance. There Are Two Things In Life That You Don't Get Another Chance At - Marrying The Wrong Person And What You Do With Your Children.
Children
Mistake
Things In Life
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.
Business
Insightful
Causes
Stocks Of Companies Selling Commodity-like Products Should Come With A Warning Label: "competition May Prove Hazardous To Human Wealth".
Competition
May
Labels
Mr. Market Is Your Servant, Not Your Guide.
Guides
Servant
I Never Try To Predict The Market.
Trying
I Think That They Hoped The Private Sector Would Come In. And The Private Sector Tried To Come In Until They Saw The Size Of The Problem. I Mean, From Were People On That Weekend That Thought They'd Had A Solution. And Then The Hole Kept Getting Bigger And Bigger. And All Of A Sudden Became Apparent That 20 Billion Wouldn't Do It And 30 Billion Wouldn't Do It And 40 Billion Wouldn't Do It. So It Got Beyond Anybody's Ability To Certainly To Do It In A Short Period Of Time.
Mean
Weekend
Thinking
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.
Past
Important
Records
I'm Sitting With Six And A Half Billion Dollars We're Going To Use To Close The Mars-wrigley Deal On October 6. I've Got To Hand Over That Six And A Half Billion On October 6. Now, I Have To Be Very Careful About Who I Leave It In Between Now And Then, Because They're Expecting That He Show Up.
Hands
Dollars
Sitting
Is Management Candid With The Shareholders?
Investing
Management
Candid
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.
Teacher
Good Life
Mean
I Mean, You Know, You're Not Going To Change The Human Animal. And The Human Animal Really Doesn't Get A Lot Smarter.
Mean
Animal
Humans
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.
Pieces
World
Paper
Turnarounds Seldom Turn.
Investing
Turnaround
Turns
Our Investments Continue To Be Few In Number And Simple In Concept: The Truly Big Investment Idea Can Usually Be Explained In A Short Paragraph. We Like A Business With Enduring Competitive Advantages That Is Run By Able And Owner-oriented People. When These Attributes Exist, And When We Can Make Purchases At Sensible Prices, It Is Hard To Go Wrong (a Challenge We Periodically Manage To Overcome).
Running
Simple
Ideas
With Housing It's Something Even More Dramatic Than That, Because Most People Aspire To Own Their Own Home.if You Really Think That Houses Prices Are Going To Go Up Next Year And The Year After, You Feel If I Don't Buy It This Year, I'm Going To Have To Buy It Next Year.that's Not True Of An Internet Stock. But It's True Of A Home.
Home
Thinking
Years
Charlie [munger] And I Are Not Big Fans Of Resumes. Instead, We Focus On Brains, Passion And Integrity.
Integrity
Passion
Focus
I Think Confidence Will Come Back.
Thinking
In The World Of Business, The People Who Are Most Successful Are Those Who Are Doing What They Love.
Life
Successful
Investment Success
We Are Trading Away A Little Bit Of Our Country All The Time For This Access Consumption That We Have Over What We've Produced. That Is Not Good. I Think It's Terrible Over Time. But Our Country's Productive Grows Enough So We Actually Can Do That, And We'll Still Be Better Off. We Just Don't Be As Well Off As If We Hadn't Done It.
Country
Thinking
Done
... The Best Way To Own Common Stocks Is Through An Index Fund.
Active Management
Way
Common
For Some Reason, People Take Their Cues From Price Action Rather Than From Values. What Doesn't Work Is When You Start Doing Things That You Don't Understand Or Because They Worked Last Week For Somebody Else. The Dumbest Reason In The World To Buy A Stock Is Because It's Going Up.
People
Investing
World
Suppose That An Investor You Admire And Trust Comes To You With An Investment Idea. This Is A Good One, He Says Enthusiastically. I'm In It, And I Think You Should Be, Too.
Business
Thinking
Ideas
Intensity Is The Price Of Excellence.
Excellence
Intensity
You Should Invest In A Business That Even A Fool Can Run, Because Someday A Fool Will.
Running
Fool
Someday
Intrinsic Value Can Be Defined Simply: It Is The Discounted Value Of The Cash That Can Be Taken Out Of A Business During Its Remaining Life. The Calculation Of Intrinsic Value, Though, Is Not So Simple. As Our Definition Suggests, Intrinsic Value Is An Estimate Rather Than A Precise Figure, And It Is Additionally An Estimate That Must Be Changed If Interest Rates Move Or Forecasts Of Future Cash Flows Are Revised.
Moving
Taken
Simple
Do Not Put All Your Eggs In One Basket.
Easter
Eggs
Investment Success
The Commission Of The Investment Sins Listed Above Is Not Limited To 'the Little Guy.' Huge Institutional Investors, Viewed As A Group, Have Long Underperformed The Unsophisticated Index-fund Investor Who Simply Sits Tight For Decades. A Major Reason Has Been Fees: Many Institutions Pay Substantial Sums To Consultants Who, In Turn, Recommend High-fee Managers. And That Is A Fool's Game.
Games
Long
Guy
There's Always A Mismatch. I Mean, You Know, As The Economy Evolves, It Reallocates Resources. Now, The Real Problem, In My View, Is - This Has Been - The Prosperity Has Been Unbelievable For The Extremely Rich People. If You Go To 1982, When Forbes Put On Their First 400 List, Those People Had $93 Billion. They Now They Have $2.4 Trillion, 25 For One. That Is - This Has Been A Prosperity That's Been Disproportionately Rewarding To The People On Top.
Real
Mean
People
No Matter How Great The Talent Or Efforts, Some Things Just Take Time.
Smart
Investing Money
Effort
If You Can Eliminate The Government As A 39.6% Partner, Then You Will Be Much Better Off.
Government
Investing
Partners
Too Often, A Vast Collection Of Possessions Ends Up Possessing Its Owner.
Buffets
Ends
Owners
I Spend Twelve Hours A Week - A Little Over 10% Of My Waking Hours - Playing The Game. Now I Am Trying To Figure Out How To Get By On Less Sleep In Order To Fit In A Few More Hands.
Sleep
Hands
Order
I Am Not In The Business Of Predicting General Stock Market Of Business Fluctuations. If You Think I Can Do This, Or Think It Is Essential To An Investment Program, You Should Not Be In The Partnership.
Thinking
Essentials
Investment
My Father Was The Best Person I've Ever Known.
Inspirational
Motivational
Father
Someone's Sitting In The Shade Today Because Someone Planted A Tree A Long Time Ago. The Person Sitting In The Shade Now Should Be Grateful For The Person Who Planted And Tended That Tree. That Includes All Those Benefactors Of Humanity Throughout History That Created, Invented, Financed, Produced, Maintained And Improved All That We Enjoy Today.
Gratitude
Grateful
Long
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.
Years
Office
Lasts
I Mean There Is No Capital Requirements To It Or Anything Of The Sort. And Basically, I Said There Were Possibly Financial Weapons Of Mass Destruction, And They Had Them. They Destroyed Aig. They Certainly Contributed To The Destruction Of Bear Sterns And Lehman. Although Lehman Had Other Problems, Too.
Mean
Mass Destruction
Weapons
It's A Good Idea To Review Past Mistakes Before Committing New Ones.
Mistake
Past
Ideas
Well, I Think The Biggest Mistake Is Not Learning The Habits Of Saving Properly Early. Because Saving Is A Habit. And Then, Trying To Get Rich Quick. It's Pretty Easy To Get Well-to-do Slowly. But It's Not Easy To Get Rich Quick.
Get Well
Mistake
Thinking
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.
Government
Payroll Tax
Income
Only When You Combine Sound Intellect With Emotional Discipline Do You Get Rational Behavior.
Emotional
Discipline
Sound
What's Nice About Investing Is You Don't Have To Swing At Every Pitch.
Business
Nice
Swings
I Mean [franklin Delano] Roosevelt Didn't - You Know, When He Came In, He Didn't Print Any Money.
Mean
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Print
There Is No Substitute For A Local Newspaper That Is Doing Its Job.
Jobs
Newspapers
Substitutes
The Best Education You Can Get Is Investing In Yourself, And That Doesn't Mean College Or University.
Mean
College
Investing
The Stock Market Is Designed To Transfer Money From The Active To The Patient.
Money
Investing
Patient
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.
Investing
Predictions
Persons
We Also Believe Candour Benefits Us As Managers. The Ceo Who Misleads Often In Public Eventually Misleads Himself In Private.
Believe
Benefits
Ceo
You Can't Make A Good Deal With A Bad Person.
Life
Generosity
Buffets
The Extraordinary Business Does Not Require Good Management.
Good Man
Doe
Management
The Line Separating Investment And Speculation, Which Is Never Bright And Clear, Becomes Blurred Still Further When Most Market Participants Have Recently Enjoyed Triumphs. Nothing Sedates Rationality Like Large Doses Of Effortless Money. After A Heady Experience Of That Kind, Normally Sensible People Drift Into Behavior Akin To That Of Cinderella At The Ball.
Investing Money
People
Triumph
The Difference Between Successful People And Really Successful People Is That Really Successful People Say No To Almost Everything.
Life
Success
Differences
The Fact That People Will Be Full Of Greed, Fear, Or Folly Is Predictable. The Sequence Is Not Predictable.
People
Greed
Investing
I Want To Be Able To Explain My Mistakes. This Means I Do Only The Things I Completely Understand.
Mistake
Mean
Want
I Would Say It's More Important Who The Treasury Secretary Is Than Who The Vice President Is. If You Want To Have A Debate Here, I'd Like A Debate Between Potential Treasury Secretaries Than The Vice Presidential Debate.
Presidential
Important
Vices
We've Been In A Recession, By Any Common Sense Definition, Because If You Look At The American Public, They've Got 20 Billion - 20 Trillion, I Should Say, Worth Of Residential Homes.
Home
Common Sense
Looks
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.
Jobs
Children
People
Bull Markets And Bear Markets Can Obscure Mathematical Laws, They Cannot Repeal Them.
Law
Bulls
Bears
Government Can't Deliver A Free Lunch To The Country As A Whole. It Can, However, Determine Who Pays For Lunch. And Last Week The Senate Handed The Bill To The Wrong Party... The Poor And Middle Class.
Country
Party
Class
Market Price, While Used Exclusively To Value Our Investments In Minority Positions, Is Not A Relevant Factor When Applied To Our Controlling Interests.
Minorities
Investment
Used
The Stockmarket Is A Semi-psychotic Creature Given To Extremes Of Elation And Despair.
Despair
Elation
Psychotic
Investing In A Market Where People Believe In Efficiency Is Like Playing Bridge With Someone Who Has Been Told It Doesn't Do Any Good To Look At The Cards.
Believe
Bridges
People
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.
Crush
Events
Truth Is
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.
Loss
Exercise
Thinking
Don't Settle For Anything Other Than Your Passion - If You're Lucky Enough To Find It.
Passion
Lucky
Settling
Never Test The Depth Of River With Both The Feet.
Inspirational
Rivers
Feet
Anything Can Happen In Stock Markets And You Ought To Conduct Your Affairs So That If The Most Extraordinary Events Happen, That You're Still Around To Play The Next Day.
Play
Next Day
Events
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.
Loyalty
Smoking
Dollars
If We Start Deciding, Based On Guesses Or Emotions, Whether We Will Or Won't Participate In A Business Where We Should Have Some Long Run Edge, We're In Trouble.
Running
Should Have
Long
I've Often Felt There Might Be More To Be Gained By Studying Business Failures Than Business Successes.
Business Success
Might
Study
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?
Feet
Gold
Cubes
It Is Better To Point Out Your Own Mistakes Than Have Somebody Else Do It.
Mistake
There Is No Staff. I Make All The Investment Decisions And I Do All My Own Analysis.
Decision
Analysis
Investment
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?
Mean
America
People
What You Really Want To Do In Investments Is Figure Out What's Important And Knowable. If It's Unimportant Or Unknowable You Forget About It.
Important
Want
Forget
Either They're Trying To Con You Or They're Trying To Con Themselves.
Trying
You Can Be Sure That Over The Next 10 Years, You'll See Something That You Did Not Think Was Possible.
Thinking
Years
Investing
Focus On Your Customers And Lead Your People As Though Their Lives Depend On Your Success.
People
Focus
Investing
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.
Zero
Real
Years
I've Made Money Over The Years By Buying Into Good Companies, Run By Good People, At Attractive Prices. And I Don't Try And Make It Out Of Buying Into The Market At One Point And Selling At Another Point.
Running
Years
People
Our Goal Is To Find An Outstanding Business At A Sensible Price, Not A Mediocre Business At A Bargain Price.
Goal
Outstanding
Mediocre
...i Will Give You Two Pieces Of Advice. Invest As Much In Yourself As You Can; You Are Your Own Best Asset By Far. Then Follow Your Passion; You Want To Be Really Excited To Get Out Of Bed Every Morning.
Morning
Passion
Two
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.
Might
Management
Investment
My Favorite Time Frame For Holding A Stock Is Forever.
Forever
My Favorite
Emotional Makeup Is More Important Than Technical Skill
Makeup
Emotional
Skills
I May Have More Money Than You, But Money Doesn't Make The Difference. If There Is Any Difference Between You And Me, It May Simply Be That I Get Up And Have A Chance To Do What I Love To Do, Every Day. If You Learn Anything From Me, This Is The Best Advice I Can Give You.
Differences
Giving
Advice
All But A Few Of The Organizations Do Not Specifically Promise To Deliver Superior Investment Performance Although It Is Perhaps Not Unreasonable For The Public To Draw Such An Inference From Their Advertised Emphasis On Professional Management.
Organization
Promise
Management
In Our View, Derivatives Are Financial Weapons Of Mass Destruction Carrying Dangers That, While Latent, Are Potentially Lethal.
Business
Mass Destruction
Views
I Wouldn't Want To Manufacture Cigarettes. But If I Owned - We Do Own Costco. Do They Sell Them? Yes. So I Don't Have A Problem Owning Stock In That. But I Just Wouldn't Want To - I Wouldn't Want To Do It Myself. I Basically Think, If Anything Is Sufficiently Antisocial, Society Should Do Something About It. But That's A Separate Question. But - And I Don't Think There's Any Company That I Have Seen That's 100 Percent Pure.
Thinking
Problem
Antisocial
America Should Stand For More Than Just Wealth.
Wealth
Trust Is Like The Air We Breathe--when It's Present, Nobody Really Notices; When It's Absent, Everybody Notices.
Air
Breathe
Absent
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.
People
Guy
Needs
All Day You Wait For The Pitch You Like; Then When The Fielders Are Asleep, You Step Up And Hit It.
Waiting
Steps
Step Up
Two Rules: 1. Preserve The Principal 2. When In Doubt, See Rule #1.
Business
Two
Doubt
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.
Mean
Truth Is
Taxes
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.
Integrity
Two
Energy
The Only Way To Be Loved Is To Be Loveable, Which Really Irritates Me.
Way
I Did Not Think I Would See The Day When, You Know, An Aig Would Not Be Able To Have Its Checks Clear.
Thinking
Able
Checks
I Get To Do What I Like To Do Every Single Day Of The Year.
Years
Investing
Buffets
I Think Any Time You Couple The Term "wall Street" With "bailout" Or Something Like That, You Know - I Don't Like What's Going On In Wall Street.
Wall
Couple
Thinking
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
Business
Groups
Rotten
When We Went Crazy, And We Did Go Crazy On Residential Real Estate, It Set Things In Motion That Just - The Dominoes Started Toppling.
Crazy
Real
Estates
Never Depend On A Single Source Of Income.
Income
Source
Depends
With A Wonderful Business, You Can Figure Out What Will Happen; You Can't Figure Out When It Will Happen. You Don't Want To Focus On When, You Want To Focus On What. If You're Right About What, You Don't Have To Worry About When
Worry
Focus
What If
Managers That Always Promise To 'make The Numbers' Will At Some Point Be Tempted To Make Up The Numbers.
Numbers
Promise
Tempted
That's The Reality Of What They're Going To Sell Them To The Treasury For.
Reality
Treasury
Sells
They [goverment] Take From The Woman Who Comes In And Takes The Wastebaskets Out.
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.
Investing
Economy
Stills
I Mean, If Pearl Harbor Came Along, You Could Have Said The Planning Was Wrong By The Military Ahead Of Time Or Maybe The Battleships Shouldn't Have All Been In The Harbor And All That Kind Of Thing.
Military
Mean
Pearls
Of Our 49 Billion, We Haven't Moved Any To Bitcoin
Bitcoin
Billions
Havens
If You Know How To Value Businesses, It's Crazy To Own 50 Stocks Or 40 Stocks Or 30 Stocks, Probably Because There Aren't That Many Wonderful Businesses Understandable To A Single Human Being In All Likelihood. To Forego Buying More Of Some Super-wonderful Business And Instead Put Your Money Into #30 Or #35 On Your List Of Attractiveness Just Strikes Charlie And Me As Madness.
Crazy
Investing
Buying
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.
Book
Thinking
Mind
Learning How To Live Is Much More Important Than Learning How To Make A Living.
Inspirational Life
Important
I Would Say The Biggest Single Cause Was We Had An Incredible Residential Real Estate Bubble.
Real
Causes
Incredibles
Personally, I Really Hope I Can Treat Everyone Equally. I Think I Have Done A Pretty Good Job So Far But I Know I Can Do It Better.
Jobs
Thinking
Done
My Wealth Has Come From A Combination Of Living In America, Some Lucky Genes, And Compound Interest.
America
Lucky
Wealth
If Book Knowledge Made Great Investors, Than The Librarians Would All Be Rich.
Book
Rich
Librarian
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.
Advice
Investing
Cash
Risk Comes From Not Knowing What You're Doing.
Life
Business
War
If You Cannot Control Your Emotions, You Cannot Control Your Money.
Emotion
Ifs
There's Not Many Businesses Where Someone Can Come In And Offer To Cut The Price In Half And Somebody Doesn't Think About Shifting. But That's The Nature Of The Ratings Business.
Cutting
Thinking
Half
I Don't Think It Would Be Crazy To Have A Model Or An Entity Model On The Reconstruction Finance Corp.
Crazy
Thinking
Would Be
People Always Ask Me Where They Should Go To Work, And I Always Tell Them To Go To Work For Whom They Admire The Most.
People
Should
Admire
Never Invest In A Business You Can't Understand
Business
Investing
Buffets
Knowing What To Leave Out Is Just As Important As Knowing What To Focus On.
Knowing
Focus
Important
Diversification Is Protection Against Ignorance. It Makes Little Sense If You Know What You Are Doing.
Life
Ignorance
Investing
The Reaction Of Weak Management To Weak Operations Is Often Weak Accounting.
Business
Management
Weak
The Managers At Fault Periodically Report On The Lesson They Have Learned From The Latest Disappointment. They Then Usually Seek Out Future Lessons.
Disappointment
Lessons
Faults
You Could Be Somewhere Where The Mail Was Delayed Three Weeks And Do Just Fine Investing.
Three
Investing
Mail
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.
Government
Want
Asks
[economy] Is Flat On The Floor, And The Paramedics Have Arrived. And They Shouldn't Argue About Whether They Put The Resuscitation Equipment A Quarter Of An Inch This Way Or A Quarter Of An Inch This Way, Or They Shouldn't Start Criticizing The Patient, Because He Didn't Have A Blood Pressure Test Or Something Like That. They Should Do What's Needed Right Now.
Blood
Tests
Way
The Optimum Portfolio Depends On The Various Expectations Of Choices Available And The Degree Of Variance In Performance Which Is Tolerable. The Greater The Number Of Selections, The Less Will Be The Average Year-to-year Variation In Actual Versus Expected Results. Also, The Lower Will Be The Expected Results, Assuming Different Choices Have Different Expectations Of Performance.
Average
Years
Numbers
The Noah Rule: Predicting Rain Doesn't Count; Building Arks Does.
Rain
Ark
Doe
When They Get Their Ego Involved, People Do Things They Shouldn't Do.
People
Ego
Investing
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.
Love You
Successful
College
My Job Is Essentially Just Corralling More And More And More Facts And Information, And Occasionally Seeing Whether That Leads To Some Action.
Jobs
Information
Facts
In Some Corner Of The World They Are Probably Still Holding Regular Meetings Of The Flat Earth Society. We Derive No Comfort Because Important People, Vocal People, Or Great Numbers Of People Agree With Us. Nor Do We Derive Comfort If They Don't.
Numbers
People
Important
Trending Author
Seth Godin
Ho Chi Minh
Haile Gebrselassie
Marty Feldman
Harry Frankfurt
Jerry Brown
Category
Information