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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.

-Warren Buffett

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Writing Checks To The

Warren Buffett

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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.

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The Greatest Investment A Young Person Can Make Is In Their Own Education, In Their Own Mind. Because Money Comes And Goes. Relationships Come And Go. But What You Learn Once Stays With You Forever.

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

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

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

In A Bull Market, One Must Avoid The Error Of The Preening Duck That Quacks Boastfully After A Torrential Rainstorm, Thinking That Its Paddling Skills Have Caused It To Rise In The World. A Right-thinking Duck Would Instead Compare Its Position After The Downpour To That Of The Other Ducks On The Pond.

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.

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

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

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

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

There Is No Question We Have An Access Stock.

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

In Fact, In My Adult Lifetime, I Don't Think I've Ever Seen People As Fearful Economically As They Are Right Now.

To Invest Successfully, You Need Not Understand Beta, Efficient Markets, Modern Portfolio Theory, Option Pricing Or Emerging Markets. You May, In Fact, Be Better Off Knowing Nothing Of These. That, Of Course, Is Not The Prevailing View At Most Business Schools, Whose Finance Curriculum Tends To Be Dominated By Such Subjects. In Our View, Though, Investment Students Need Only Two Well-taught Courses - How To Value A Business, And How To Think About Market Prices.

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

Beware Of Geeks Bearing Formulas.

People Do, As Long As You Have Markets, You'll Have Excesses.

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

I'm Putting All My Money In The Chinese Toy Market.

Lethargy Bordering On Sloth Remains The Cornerstone Of Our Investment Style. The Exception Was Wells Fargo, A Superbly-managed, High-return Banking Operation In Which We Increased Our Ownership To Just Under 10%, The Most We Can Own Without The Approval Of The Federal Reserve Board.

The Most Important Investment You Can Make Is In Yourself... Nobody Can Tax It Or Take It Away From You.

A Great Investment Opportunity Occurs When A Marvelous Business Encounters A One-time Huge, But Solvable Problem.

The Reaction Of Weak Management To Weak Operations Is Often Weak Accounting.

An Investor Needs To Do Very Few Things Right As Long As He Or She Avoids Big Mistakes.

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.

We All Make Mistakes. If You Can't Make Mistakes, You Can't Make Decisions. I've Made A Lot Bigger Mistakes Myself.

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.

... It's Important To Have The Right Monetary Policy. It's Important For, To Have The Right Fiscal Policy. But It's Nowhere Near As Important As Just The Normal Regenerative Capacity Of American Capitalism.

If Horses Had Controlled Investment Decisions, There Would Have Been No Auto Industry.

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

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

You Don't Need To Be A Rocket Scientist. Investing Is Not A Game Where The Guy With The 160 Iq Beats The Guy With 130 Iq.

Investment Success

If The World Couldn't See Your Results, Would You Rather Be Thought Of As The World's Greatest Investor But In Reality Have The World's Worst Record? Or Be Thought Of As The World's Worst Investor When You Were Actually The Best?

Does The Business Have A Consistent Operating History?

Investing Is The Greatest Business In The World Because You Never Have To Swing. You Stand At The Plate; The Pitcher Throws You General Motors At 47! U.s. Steel At 39! And Nobody Calls A Strike On You. There's No Penalty Except Opportunity. All Day You Wait For The Pitch You Like; Then, When The Fielders Are Asleep, You Step Up And Hit It.

I Sent One E-mail In My Life. I Sent It To Jeff Raikes At Microsoft, And It Ended Up In Court In Minneapolis, So I Am One For One.

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.

If You're In A Card Game And You Can't Figure Out Who The Patsy Is, You're It.

If Knowing History Made You Rich, Librarians Would Be Billionaires.

The Extraordinary Business Does Not Require Good Management.

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.

With Each Investment You Make, You Should Have The Courage And The Conviction To Place At Least Ten Per Cent Of Your Net Worth In That Stock

If You Don't Feel Comfortable Owning Something For 10 Years, Then Don't Own It For 10 Minutes.

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

It's Far Better To Buy A Wonderful Company At A Fair Price Than A Fair Company At A Wonderful Price.

Investing Money

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.

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.

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

For Some Reason People Take Their Cues From Price Action Rather Than From Values. Price Is What You Pay. Value Is What You Get.

When We Own Portions Of Outstanding Businesses With Outstanding Managements, Our Favorite Holding Period Is Forever.

Investing Money

If You Have More Than 120 Or 130 I.q. Points, You Can Afford To Give The Rest Away. You Don't Need Extraordinary Intelligence To Succeed As An Investor.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

When It's Raining Gold, Reach For A Bucket, Not A Thimble.

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

The Approach And Strategies Are Very Similar In That You Gather All The Information You Can And Then Keep Adding To That Base Of Information As Things Develop. You Do Whatever The Probabilities Indicated Based On The Knowledge That You Have At That Time, But You Are Always Willing To Modify Your Behaviour Or Your Approach As You Get New Information. In Bridge, You Behave In A Way That Gets The Best From Your Partner. And In Business, You Behave In The Way That Gets The Best From Your Managers And Your Employees.

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 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

In Earlier Years, A Lesser Effort Produced Literally Dozens Of Comparable Opportunities. It Is Difficult To Be Objective About The Causes For Such Diminution Of One's Own Productivity. Three Factors That Seem Apparent Are: (1) A Somewhat Changed Market Environment; (2) Our Increased Size; And (3) Substantially More Competition.

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

I Don't Really Think That, As A Society, We [americans] Want To Confer Blessings On Generation After Generation Who Contribute Nothing To Society, Simply Because Somebody In The Far Distant Past Happened To Amass A Great Sum Of Wealth.

In An Inflationary World, A Toll Bridge (like Company) Would Be A Great Thing To Own Because You've Laid Out The Capital Costs. You Built It In Old Dollars And You Don't Have To Keep Replacing It.

If Past History Was All There Was To The Game, The Richest People Would Be Librarians.

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

[people] Have Seen The Credit Market Seize Up. They're Worried About Money Market Funds, Although The Latest Proposition From Government Should Take Care Of That. They've Seen Eight Percent Of The Bank Deposits In The United States Get Moved Very Skillfully, I Might Say, Within The Last Couple Of Weeks From Institutions That They Thought Were Fine A Few Months Ago To Other Institutions. They Are Not Wrong To Be Worried.

Someone Is Sitting In The Shade Today Because Someone Planted A Tree A Long Time Ago.

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

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

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

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

In The Insurance Business, There Is No Statute Of Limitation On Stupidity.

You Don't Want 300 Million Americans Putting Their Money Under The Mattress.

In The End We Must Have People To Match Our Principles, Not The Reverse.

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).

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

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

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

Should You Find Yourself In A Chronically Leaking Boat, Energy Devoted To Changing Vessels Is Likely To Be More Productive Than Energy Devoted To Patching Leaks.

Investing Money

Investment Success

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

But 300 Million Americans, Their Lending Institutions, Their Government, Their Media, All Believed That House Prices Were Going To Go Up Consistently. And That Got Billed Into A $20 Trillion Residential Home Market. Lending Was Done Based On It, And Everybody Did A Lot Of Foolish Things.

Is Management Rational?

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

Investing Money

In The Search [of A Deal], We Adopt The Same Attitude One Might Find Appropriate In Looking For A Spouse: It Pays To Be Active, Interested, And Open-minded, But It Does Not Pay To Be In A Hurry.

[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.

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.

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

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.

Stocks Of Companies Selling Commodity-like Products Should Come With A Warning Label: "competition May Prove Hazardous To Human Wealth".

I Do Not Like Debt And Do Not Like To Invest In Companies That Have Too Much Debt, Particularly Long-term Debt. With Long-term Debt, Increases In Interest Rates Can Drastically Affect Company Profits And Make Future Cash Flows Less Predictable.

I Think It's Been, You Know, Kind Of Like A Tragic Play To This Point. But At This Point, I Think It's Clear, And Will Be Clear To The Majority Of The Congress. I Think It's Clear To The American People That There Is Only One Countervailing Force To A World Where Financial Institutions Are Trying To Sell Instruments Every Day And Where Credit Has Dried Up, And That's The United States Treasury.

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

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

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

I Think The Fdic Was One Of The Great Inventions Of The American.

Great Inventions

There Is No Substitute For A Local Newspaper That Is Doing Its Job.

But, Surprise - None Of These Blockbuster Events Made The Slightest Dent In Ben Graham's Investment Principles. Nor Did They Render Unsound The Negotiated Purchases Of Fine Businesses At Sensible Prices. Imagine The Cost To Us, Then, If We Had Let A Fear Of Unknowns Cause Us To Defer Or Alter The Deployment Of Capital. Indeed, We Have Usually Made Our Best Purchases When Apprehensions About Some Macro Event Were At A Peak. Fear Is The Foe Of The Faddist, But The Friend Of The Fundamentalist.

[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.

If You Understood A Business Perfectly And The Future Of The Business, You Need Very Little In The Way Of A Margin Of Safety.

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.

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

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.

We Can Afford To Lose Money - Even A Lot Of Money. But We Can't Afford To Lose Reputation - Even A Shred Of Reputation.

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.

The Typical Large Company Has A Compensation Committee, They Don't Look For Dobermans On That Committee, They Look For Chihuahuas.

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

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

I Mean, You Can Explain The Fact That These Are Depressed Prices, You Know. We Think These Assets Are Going To Be Worth A Lot More. And I Think That Case Can Be Made In Certain Situations. But I Think To Just Say, You Know, We're Going To Say A Dollar Of Cash Is Worth $2 All Of A Sudden, It Isn't Worth $2. It's Worth A Dollar Today.

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.

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

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

The Major Asset In This Category Is Gold, Currently A Huge Favorite Of Investors Who Fear Almost All Other Assets, Especially Paper Money (of Whose Value, As Noted, They Are Right To Be Fearful). Gold, However, Has Two Significant Shortcomings, Being Neither Of Much Use Nor Procreative. True, Gold Has Some Industrial And Decorative Utility, But The Demand For These Purposes Is Both Limited And Incapable Of Soaking Up New Production. Meanwhile, If You Own One Ounce Of Gold For An Eternity, You Will Still Own One Ounce At Its End.

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.

Calculate "owner Earnings" To Get A True Reflection Of Value.

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.

In A Difficult Business, No Sooner Is One Problem Solved Than Another Surfaces - Never Is There Just One Cockroach In The Kitchen.

America Should Stand For More Than Just Wealth.

Do Not Save What Is Left After Spending, But Spend What Is Left After Saving.

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.

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.

We Also Believe Candour Benefits Us As Managers. The Ceo Who Misleads Often In Public Eventually Misleads Himself In Private.

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.

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.

Diversification Is A Protection Against Ignorance. It Makes Very Little Sense For Those Who Know What They're Doing.

Growth And Value Investing Are Joined At The Hip.

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

Investors Should Remember That Excitement And Expenses Are Their Enemies.

Investing Money

Investment Success

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.

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

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

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.

Double Standard

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

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

Passion For What You Do

We Don't Read Other People's Opinions. We Want To Get The Facts, And Then Think.

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

I Never Try To Predict The Market.

The Most Important Investment You Can Make Is In Yourself. Very Few People Get Anything Like Their Potential Horsepower Translated Into The Actual Horsepower Of Their Output In Life. Potential Exceeds Realization For Many People...the Best Asset Is Your Own Self. You Can Become To An Enormous Degree The Person You Want To Be.

I Have Got This Letter Which Actually Goes Out The Day After I Die. It Has Already Been Written. And It Says That: "yesterday I Died". And Then It Says: "that's Bad News For Me, But It's Not Bad News For You, The Shareholders Of Berkshire". And Then I Go On And Explain What Is Going To Happen. I Know That Is One Time When They Will Be Really Interested In Hearing From Me.

It Makes A Difference Who The Treasury Secretary Is.

Making A Difference

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

I Mean [franklin Delano] Roosevelt Didn't - You Know, When He Came In, He Didn't Print Any Money.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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.

Paradoxically, When 'dumb' Money Acknowledges Its Limitations, It Ceases To Be Dumb.

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.

A Pin Lies In Wait For Every Bubble And When The Two Eventually Meet, A New Wave Of Investors Learns Some Very Old Lessons.

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

I'm Not Worried They're All About The Investments We Make. I Mean, Listen, This Country - We've Got $46,000 Or $47,000 Of Gdp Per Capita. Now, We've Done Pretty Darn Well. We'll Do Better In The Future.

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

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

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.

Derivatives Are Financial Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

Mass Destruction

Other Guys Read Playboy. I Read Annual Reports.

A Market Downturn, Doesn't Bother Us. For Us And Our Long Term Investors, It Is An Opportunity To Increase Our Ownership Of Great Companies With Great Management At Good Prices. Only For Short Term Investors And Market Timers Is A Correction Not An Opportunity.

We Don't Get Paid For Being Busy, We Get Paid For Being Right.

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

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.

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.

My Wealth Has Come From A Combination Of Living In America, Some Lucky Genes, And Compound Interest.

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

You Should Invest Like A Catholic Marries: For Life.

It Irritates The Hell Out Of Me But You Can't Buy Love.

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

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.

Mr. Market Is Your Servant, Not Your Guide.

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

We Will Only Do With Your Money What We Would Do With Our Own.

I Don't Want To Be On The Other Side Of The Table From The Customer. I Was Never Selling Anything That I Didn't Believe In Myself Or Use Myself.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Time Is The Friend Of The Wonderful Business. It's The Enemy Of The Lousy Business. If You're In A Lousy Business For A Long Time, You're Going To Get A Lousy Result, Even If You Buy It Cheap. If You're In A Wonderful Business For A Long Time, Even If You Pay A Little Too Much Going In, You're Going To Get A Wonderful Result If You Stay In A Long Time.

Well, One Time Some Attractive Woman Sat Next To Charlie And Asked Him What He Owed His Success To, And, Unfortunately, She Insisted On A One Word Answer. He Had A Speech Prepared That Would Have Gone On For Several Hours. But When Forced To Boil It Down To One Word, He Said That Was "rational". You Know, He Comes Equipped For Rationality, And He Applies It In Business. He Doesn't Always Apply It Elsewhere, But He Applies It In Business And That Has Made Him A Huge Business Success.

Business Success

Our Approach Is Very Much Profiting From Lack Of Change Rather Than From Change. With Wrigley Chewing Gum, It's The Lack Of Change That Appeals To Me. I Don't Think It Is Going To Be Hurt By The Internet. That's The Kind Of Business I Like.

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.

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.

Truly Conservative Actions Arise From Intelligent Hypotheses, Correct Facts And Sound Reasoning.

In The World Of Business, The People Who Are Most Successful Are Those Who Are Doing What They Love.

Investment Success

We Like To Buy Businesses, But We Don't Like To Sell Them.

At Berkshire, I Both Initiate And Monitor Every Derivatives Contract On Our Books ... If Berkshire Ever Gets In Trouble, It Will Be My Fault. It Will Not Be Because Of The Misjudgments Made By A Risk Committee Or Chief Risk Officer.

I Think The Most Important Factor In Getting Out Of The Recession Actually Is Just The Regenerative Capacity Of - Of American Capitalism.

The Thing To Do Is To Keep Your Mind When The World Around You Is Losing Theirs.

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

Investing Your Time

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

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

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

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

I Try To Buy Stock In Businesses That Are So Wonderful That An Idiot Can Run Them. Because Sooner Or Later, One Will.

Investing Money

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

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

I Have An 800 Freephone Number Now That I Call If I Get The Urge To Buy An Airline Stock. I Call At Two In The Morning And I Say: "my Name Is Warren And I'm An Aeroholic." And Then They Talk Me Down.

What Motivates Most Gold Purchasers Is Their Belief That The Ranks Of The Fearful Will Grow ... As 'bandwagon' Investors Join Any Party, They Create Their Own Truth - For A While.

Too Often, A Vast Collection Of Possessions Ends Up Possessing Its Owner. The Asset I Most Value, Aside From Health, Is Interesting, Diverse, And Long-standing Friends.

Getting Fired Can Produce A Particularly Bountiful Payday For A Ceo. Indeed, He Can 'earn' More In That Single Day, While Cleaning Out His Desk, Than An American Worker Earns In A Lifetime Of Cleaning Toilets. Forget The Old Maxim About Nothing Succeeding Like Success: Today, In The Executive Suite, The All-too-prevalent Rule Is That Nothing Succeeds Like Failure.

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

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James Truslow Adams

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