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You Can't Stand To See Your Neighbor Getting Rich. You Know You're Smarter Than He Is And He's Doing These Things And He's Getting Rich.
-Warren Buffett
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You Can't Stand To

Warren Buffett
...
You Can't Stand To See Your Neighbor Getting Rich. You Know You're Smarter Than He Is And He's Doing These Things And He's Getting Rich.

Understanding the Quote: "you can't stand to see your neighbor getting rich. you know you're..."

This quote by Warren Buffett reflects deeply on the theme of rich. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Rich, Neighbor, Knows, 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 rich and neighbor. 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.

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Topic
Rich
Neighbor
Knows
More From Warren Buffett
Investors, Of Course, Can, By Their Own Behavior Make Stock Ownership Highly Risky. And Many Do. Active Trading, Attempts To "time" Market Movements, Inadequate Diversification, The Payment Of High And Unnecessary Fees To Managers And Advisors, And The Use Of Borrowed Money Can Destroy The Decent Returns That A Life-long Owner Of Equities Would Otherwise Enjoy. Indeed, Borrowed Money Has No Place In The Investor's Tool Kit.
Long
Tools
Use
Generally Speaking, Investing In Yourself Is The Best Thing You Can Do. Anything That Improves Your Own Talents; Nobody Can Tax It Or Take It Away From You. They Can Run Up Huge Deficits And The Dollar Can Become Worth Far Less. You Can Have All Kinds Of Things Happen. But If You’ve Got Talent Yourself, And You’ve Maximized Your Talent, You’ve Got A Tremendous Asset That Can Return Ten-fold.
Running
Dollars
Investing
Managers And Investors Alike Must Understand That Accounting Numbers Are The Beginning, Not The End, Of Business Valuation.
Numbers
Ends
Billionaire
When 40 Billion Of Treasury Bills Are Sold Like, Seven Day Treasury Bills, At A Yield Of 1/20th Of One Percent, That Means The Whole Country Is Basically At The Point Virtually, Or A Lot Of The Country Is At The Point Of Putting The Money Under The Mattress.
Country
Mean
Yield
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
I've Already Written A Section In The Annual Report For Next Year Explaining Why I Think In One Case That The Figures On Our Balance Sheet As Calculated Are Wrong. But It's The Standard Way Of Doing It. It's Holy Writ. The Sec Wants Us To Do It That Way, And We'll Do It That Way, And I'll Explain Why I Think It's Wrong And Shareholders Can Read It And See Whether They Agree With My Logic Or Don't.
Thinking
Years
Balance
The Less Prudence With Which Others Conduct Their Affairs, The Greater The Prudence With Which We Should Conduct Our Own Affairs.
Insightful
Investing
Affair
There Is No Question That An Important Service Is Provided To Investors By Investment Companies, Investment Advisors, Trust Departments, Etc. This Service Revolves Around The Attainment Of Adequate Diversification, The Preservation Of A Long-term Outlook, The Ease Of Handling Investment Decisions And Mechanics, And Most Importantly, The Avoidance Of The Patently Inferior Investment Techniques Which Seem To Entice Some Individuals.
Long
Decision
Important
Exercise Humility And Restraint.
Humility
Exercise
Restraint
So Smile When You Read A Headline That Says "investors Lose As Market Falls." Edit It In Your Mind To "disinvestors Lose As Market Falls-but Investors Gain." Though Writers Often Forget This Truism, There Is A Buyer For Every Seller And What Hurts One Necessarily Helps The Other. (as They Say In Golf Matches: "every Putt Makes Someone Happy.")
Hurt
Fall
Golf
I Find That The Standard Of Living Does Not Go Up In Proportion With The Cost Of Living. The Trick In Life Is To Do Things That Are Fun All The Time.
Fun
Cost Of Living
Doe
The Much-maligned Idle Rich Have Received A Bad Rap: They Have Maintained Their Wealth While Many There Is Scarcely An Instance Of A Man Who Has Made A Fortune By Speculation And Kept It. Andrew Carnegie Of The Energetic Rich, Aggressive Real Estate Operators, Corporate Acquirers, Oil Drillers, Etc. Have Their Fortunes Disappear.
Real
Rap
Men
And People Really Behaved In A Fraudulent Way Or Something, We'll Go Back And Find The Culprits Later On. But That Really Isn't The Problem We Have. I Mean That's Where It Came From, Though. We Leveraged Up And If You Have A 20 Percent Fall In Value Of A $20 Trillion Asset, That's $4 Trillion. And When $4 Trillion Lands - Losses Land In The Wrong Part Of This Economy, It Can Gum Up The Whole Place.
Fall
Mean
Loss
Making Money Isn't The Backbone Of Our Guiding Purpose; Making Money Is The By-product Of Our Guiding Purpose. If You're Doing Something You Love, You're More Likely To Put Your All Into It, And That Generally Equates To Making Money
Business
Love You
Purpose
Derivatives Are Like Sex. It's Not Who We're Sleeping With, It's Who They're Sleeping With That's The Problem.
Sex
Sleep
Derivatives
Our Goal Is To Find An Outstanding Business At A Sensible Price, Not A Mediocre Business At A Bargain Price.
Goal
Outstanding
Mediocre
Very Successful People Say No To Almost Everything.
Successful
Investment Success
People
The Time To Buy Stocks Is Consistently Over Time. You Should Never Buy Your Investments With The Idea, 'i Have To Get A Certain Return.' You Should Look At The Best Return Possible And Learn To Live With That. But You Should Not Try To Make Your Investments Earn What You Feel You Need. It Doesn't Work That Way. The Stock Doesn't Know You Own It.
Wisdom
Ideas
Trying
If You Are A Professional And Have Confidence, Then I Would Advocate Lots Of Concentration.
Concentration
Have Confidence
Ifs
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.
Law
Pay
Lucky
If Aig Had Tried To Unwind Their Derivatives Books. I Don't Know. It Would Have Hit Every Institution In The World.
Book
World
Derivatives
Every Day That Goes By, I Mean, If You Don't React To Pearl Harbor For A Week Or Two Weeks Or Three Weeks, You're Behind In The War That You Otherwise Would Have Fought.
War
Mean
Two
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.
Bridges
Principles
Investing
You Could Be Somewhere Where The Mail Was Delayed Three Weeks And Do Just Fine Investing.
Three
Investing
Mail
An Investor Should Ordinarily Hold A Small Piece Of An Outstanding Business With The Same Tenacity That An Owner Would Exhibit If He Owned All Of That Business.
Investing
Pieces
Tenacity
You Are Neither Right Nor Wrong Because The Crowd Disagrees With You.
Life
Generosity
Crowds
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
Fund Consultants Like To Require Style Boxes Such As "long-short," "macro," "international Equities." At Berkshire Our Only Style Box Is "smart."
Smart
Long
Style
A Lot Of People Disagree With Me On This, I Believe In Mark To Market.
Believe
People
Mark
If You Were At Lehman, The Same Thing Happened. If You Were At Aig, The Shareholders Are Getting Creamed On These Things. And Those Shareholders Are Not Just A Bunch Of Big Shots In Wall Street. Those Are Pension Funds, And Those Are Investors All Over The Country. I Wouldn't Worry Too Much About That. Justice Won't Be Perfect On It.
Country
Wall
Perfect
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."
Business
Mean
Men
The 19th Century Belonged To England, The 20th Century Belonged To The U.s., And The 21st Century Belongs To China. Invest Accordingly.
England
Century
China
The First Rule Is Not To Lose. The Second Rule Is Not To Forget The First Rule.
Business
Loss
Investing
The Woman That Comes In, Takes The Wastebasket Away, She's Paying 15.3 Or Whatever It Is On Payroll Tax Alone. I Mean It Is - I Never Had It So Good.
Mean
Payroll Tax
Taxes
The Reaction Of Weak Management To Weak Operations Is Often Weak Accounting.
Business
Management
Weak
The Key To Investing Is Not Assessing How Much An Industry Is Going To Affect Society, Or How Much It Will Grow, But Rather Determining The Competitive Advantage Of Any Given Company And, Above All, The Durability Of That Advantage.
Keys
Investing
Durability
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
If I Got Any Good Ideas Out Of That Or I Think They're Good Ideas, I'll Be Glad To Contribute Them But The System Will Probably Overdo Some Other Things.
Thinking
Ideas
Glad
My Favorite Time Frame For Holding A Stock Is Forever.
Forever
My Favorite
When I Take A Look At A Company's Annual Report, If I Don't Understand It, They Don't Want Me To Understand It.
Want
Looks
Annual Reports
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
The Thing To Do Is To Keep Your Mind When The World Around You Is Losing Theirs.
Mind
Relax
World
I'll Take The Deal, Whatever You Want To Do.
Want
Deals
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
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
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.
Deployment
Principles
Events
The Best Asset Is Your Own Self. You Can Become To An Enormous Degree The Person You Want To Be
Self
Degrees
Want
The Real Fortunes In This Country Have Been Made By People Who Have Been Right About The Business They Invested In, And Not Right About The Timing Of The Stock Market.
Country
Real
People
If Book Knowledge Made Great Investors, Than The Librarians Would All Be Rich.
Book
Rich
Librarian
Would Your Reply Possibly Be This? Well, It All Depends On What My Tax Rate Will Be On The Gain You're Saying We're Going To Make. If The Taxes Are Too High, I Would Rather Leave The Money In My Savings Account, Earning A Quarter Of 1 Percent. Only In Grover Norquist's Imagination Does Such A Response Exist.
Business
Imagination
Earning
Our Approach Is Very Much Profiting From Lack Of Change Rather Than From Change.
Investing Money
Gum
Buffets
As Far As You Are Concerned, The Stock Market Does Not Exist. Ignore It.
Doe
Investing
Concerned
Two Rules: 1. Preserve The Principal 2. When In Doubt, See Rule #1.
Business
Two
Doubt
Calculate "owner Earnings" To Get A True Reflection Of Value.
Reflection
Investing
Earning
Asking For Financial Advice From A Financial Planner Is Like Asking A Barber If You Need A Hair Cut.
Cutting
Hair
Advice
If Principles Can Become Dated, They're Not Principles.
Life
Generosity
Principles
Beware Of Geeks Bearing Formulas.
Saving
Investing
Geek
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
Outstanding Long-term Results Are Produced Primarily By Avoiding Dumb Decisions, Rather Than By Making Brilliant Ones.
Long
Decision
Dumb
The [stock] Market,like The Lord, Helps Those Who Help Themselves. But, Unlike The Lord, The Market Does Not Forgive Those Who Know Not What They Do.
Forgiving
Doe
Helping
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
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.
Attitude
Doe
Might
We Want To Use Cash. The Reason We Haven't Used Our Cash Two Years Ago, We Just Didn't Find Things That Were That Attractive. But When People Talk About Cash Being King, It's Not King If It Just Sits There And Never Does Anything. There Are Times When Cash Buys More Than Other Times, And This Is One Of The Other Times When It Buys A Fair Amount More, So We Use It.
Kings
Years
Two
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 Think The Most Important Factor In Getting Out Of The Recession Actually Is Just The Regenerative Capacity Of - Of American Capitalism.
Thinking
Important
Capacity
Possessing A Powerful Worldwide Brand Is Essential For Sustained Success.
Powerful
Essentials
Brands
A Pack Of Lemmings Looks Like A Group Of Rugged Individualists Compared With Wall Street When It Gets A Concept In Its Teeth.
Wall
Business
Groups
The Only Question Is Whether You’re Going To Do It Today Or Tomorrow. If You Keep Saying You’re Going To Do It Tomorrow, You’ll Never Do It. You Have To Get On It Today.
Today
Tomorrow
Ifs
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
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
You Don't Need To Have Extraordinary Effort To Achieve Extraordinary Results. You Just Need To Do The Ordinary, Everyday Things Exceptionally Well.
Everyday Things
Effort
Ordinary
Intensity Is The Price Of Excellence.
Excellence
Intensity
When You Combine Ignorance And Leverage, You Get Some Pretty Interesting Results.
Ignorance
Investing Money
Interesting
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
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
Real
Growth
Return
Investing Is Forgoing Consumption Now In Order To Have The Ability To Consume More At A Later Date.
Order
Investing
Ability
The Secret To Happiness Is Having Low Expectations.
Expectations
Secret
Lows
Do Not Save What Is Left After Spending, But Spend What Is Left After Saving.
Inspirational
Life
Money
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.
Ideas
Important
Investing
We Can Afford To Lose Money - Even A Lot Of Money. But We Can't Afford To Lose Reputation - Even A Shred Of Reputation.
Reputation
Lots Of Money
Loses
I Know The Country Works Extremely Well. You Know, But When It Isn't Clogged Up.
Country
Wells
Knows
I Think What People Understand There Probably - Well, They Were Hoping The Private Sector Would Do It [rescuing Aig ].
Thinking
People
Wells
We Don't Have To Be Smarter Than The Rest. We Have To Be More Disciplined Than The Rest.
Intelligent
Successful Investing
Smarter
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
You Can't Buy What Is Popular And Do Well.
Buffets
Financial
Investment
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
Always Invest For The Long Term.
Long
Investing
Term
A Great Investment Opportunity Occurs When A Marvelous Business Encounters A One-time Huge, But Solvable Problem.
Opportunity
Encounters
Investing
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.
Events
Made
Macro
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.
Book
Risk
Faults
House Prices Just Soared Beyond - Beyond Reason In Many Places And They Got Financed In Silly Ways, And People Lied About Loans, All Kinds Of Accesses Entered Into It. But That Is What - That Is The Single Biggest Cause Of Why We're Here.
Silly
People
House
Diversification May Preserve Wealth, But Concentration Builds Wealth.
Concentration Of Wealth
Investing
May
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
John Maynard Keynes Essentially Said, Don't Try And Figure Out What The Market Is Doing. Figure Out A Business You Understand, And Concentrate.
Trying
Keynes
Figures
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
Let Blockheads Read What Blockheads Wrote.
Investing
Blockheads
In Business, I Look For Economic Castles Protected By Unbreachable 'moats'.
Castles
Moats
Looks
A Fool And His Money Are Soon Invited Everywhere.
Money
Italian
Taxes Funny
It's Good To Learn From Your Mistakes. It's Better To Learn From Other People's Mistakes.
Mistake
People
Learn From Your Mistakes
I Prefer Liquor Store Robbers With Hungry Kids To Companies That Locate Offshore To Avoid U.s. Taxes.
Kids
Liquor Stores
Hungry
Things You Like To Do Should Be A Hobby Of Yours, But Things The World Does Should Be A Business Of Yours.
Hobbies
Doe
World
My Net Worth Is The Market Value Of Holdings Less The Tax Payable Upon Sale. The Liability Is Just As Real As The Asset Unless The Value Of The Asset Declines (ouch), The Asset Is Given Away (no Comment), Or I Die With It. The Latter Course Of Action Would Appear To At Least Border On A Pyrrhic Victory.
Real
Victory
Borders
We Need A Tax System That Essentially Takes Very Good Care Of The People Who Just Really Aren't As Well Adapted To The Market System But Are Nevertheless Doing Useful Things In The Society.
People
Needs
Care
You Don't Need To Be An Expert In Order To Achieve Satisfactory Investment Returns. But If You Aren't, You Must Recognize Your Limitations And Follow A Course Certain To Work Reasonably Well. Keep Things Simple And Don't Swing For The Fences.
Simple
Swings
Order
We've Got A Wonderful Economic Formula In This Country.
Country
Wonderful
Economic
When Somebody Makes It Very Easy For You To Do It By Saying You Don't Really Have To Put Up My Money, You Can Lie About Your Income A Little, Or We'll Give You 100 Percent Mortgage, You're Going To Do It, Because Everybody That's Done It Has Been Proven Right. You Have Social Tools, And You're Going To Feel Like An Idiot If You Didn't Do It, Because The House Cost More.
Lying
Giving
House
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.
Average
Two
Needs
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.
Mean
People
Guy
Charlie [munger] And I Are Not Big Fans Of Resumes. Instead, We Focus On Brains, Passion And Integrity.
Integrity
Passion
Focus
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.
Government
Earth
Way
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
Money Will Always Flow Toward Opportunity, And There Is An Abundance Of That In America.
Opportunity
America
Flow
... Not Doing What We Love In The Name Of Greed Is Very Poor Management Of Our Lives.
Life
Investment Success
Names
Economic Medicine That Was Previously Meted Out By The Cupful Has Recently Been Dispensed By The Barrel. These Once Unthinkable Dosages Will Almost Certainly Bring On Unwelcome After-effects. Their Precise Nature Is Anyone's Guess, Though One Likely Consequence Is An Onslaught Of Inflation.
Medicine
Economic
Barrels
We Do Not Have, Nor Have Had, And Never Will Have An Opinion About Where The Stock Market, Interest Rates, Or Business Activity Will Be A Year From Now.
Years
Opinion
Interest
Wild Swings In Share Prices Have More To Do With The "lemming- Like" Behaviour Of Institutional Investors Than With The Aggregate Returns Of The Company They Own.
Swings
Lemmings
Return
When Berkshire Hathaway Laid Out Three Billion Dollars For Ge Today, We Didn't Spend It, We Invested It. When The Federal Government Buys The Mortgages, They're Not Spending It, They're Investing It. Now, They're Investing It In Distress Type Assets But They're Buying Them At Distress Prices If They Buy Them At Market. It's The Kind Of Stuff I Love To Do. I Just Don't Have 700 Million. Maybe We Could Go In It Together.
Government
Together
Three
There's No Use Running If You're On The Wrong Road.
Running
What Matters
Use
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%.
War
Yield
Years
We Have Provided Capital Here With A Couple Of Institutions Recently. The Federal Government Did That In The '30s For The Rfc And I Think There Could Well Be A Proper Role For Government In That.
Couple
Thinking
Government
Games Are Won By Players Who Focus On The Playing Field -- Not By Those Whose Eyes Are Glued To The Scoreboard.
Eye
Player
Games
Investing Is Laying Out Money Now To Get More Money Back In The Future.
Investing
More Money
Knowing What To Leave Out Is Just As Important As Knowing What To Focus On.
Knowing
Focus
Important
If You've Been Playing Poker For Half An Hour And You Still Don't Know Who The Patsy Is, You're The Patsy.
Half
Buffets
Hours
I've Never Been Very Fully Employed Either But Just Think Of What It's Like, You Know, To Go Home With A Mortgage Payment You Know And Kids And Everything Else. My Dad Had That Happen To Him In The Early '30s.
Dad
Home
Kids
With Enough Insider Information And A Million Dollars, You Can Go Broke In A Year.
Years
Dollars
Investing
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
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.
Years
Games
Two
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.
Mean
Thinking
Dollars
We Continue To Make More Money When Snoring Than When Active.
Investing
Timing
More Money
It's Better To Build Than To Buy If You Can Find The Right People.
People
Ifs
It's Very Important That The Determination Of The Us Congress To Do What Is Is Needed Be Made Evident This Week And By The Actions Of Most Of The Members. I Mean, You're Not Going To Get Total Assent.
Determination
Mean
Important
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.
Bridges
Dollars
Would Be
Why Not Invest Your Assets In The Companies You Really Like? As Mae West Said, 'too Much Of A Good Thing Can Be Wonderful'.
Success
Business
Why Not
Part Of Making Good Decisions In Business Is Recognizing The Poor Decisions You've Made And Why They Were Poor. I've Made Lots Of Mistakes. I'm Going To Make More. It's The Name Of The Game. You Don't Want To Expect Perfection In Yourself. You Want To Strive To Do Your Best. It's Too Demanding To Expect Perfection In Yourself.
Mistake
Poor Decisions
Games
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
What You Love
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.
Two
Gold
Use
If, When Making A Stock Investment, You're Not Considering Holding It At Least Ten Years, Don't Waste More Than Ten Minutes Considering It.
Years
Waste
Investment
I Have A House That I Bought 55 Years Ago. It's Warm In The Winter; It's Cool In The Summer. It Has Everything I Wanted, Plus It Has All Kinds Of Good Memories. Like My Kids, I Have Good Thoughts About That. I Can't Imagine Living Any Better.
Summer
Memories
Kids
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.
Children
Giving
Rich
Having First Rate People On The Team Is More Important Than Designing Hierarchies And Clarifying Who Reports To Whom.
Team
People
Design
The Trick Is, When There Is Nothing To Do, Do Nothing.
Life
Generosity
Tricks
What The Human Being Is Best At Doing Is Interpreting All New Information So That Their Prior Conclusions Remain Intact.
Information
Conclusion
Humans
There Is Nothing Like Writing To Force You To Think And Get Your Thoughts Straight.
Writing
Thinking
Force
Long Ago, Ben Graham Taught Me That "price Is What You Pay; Value Is What You Get." Whether We're Talking About Socks Or Stocks, I Like Buying Quality Merchandise When It Is Marked Down.
Long Ago
Investing
Buffets
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
Is Management Candid With The Shareholders?
Investing
Management
Candid
I Bought A Company In The Mid-90s Called Dexter Shoe And Paid $400 Million For It. And It Went To Zero. And I Gave About $400 Million Worth Of Berkshire Stock, Which Is Probably Now Worth $400 Billion. But I've Made Lots Of Dumb Decisions. That's Part Of The Game.
Zero
Games
Shoes
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.
Thinking
Errors
Skills
It Is Impossible To Unsign A Contract, So Do All Your Thinking Before You Sign.
Thinking
Impossible
Contracts
I Do Know That When I Am 60, I Should Be Attempting To Achieve Different Personal Goals Than Those Which Had Priority At Age 20.
Goal
Priorities
Age
When People Talk About Cash Being King, It's Not King If It Just Sits There And Never Does Anything.
Kings
People
Doe
Someone Is Sitting In The Shade Today Because Someone Planted A Tree A Long Time Ago.
Inspirational
Life
Motivational
We Also Believe Candour Benefits Us As Managers. The Ceo Who Misleads Often In Public Eventually Misleads Himself In Private.
Believe
Benefits
Ceo
Our Favorite Holding Period Is Forever.
Funny Inspirational
Business
War
If You Don't Feel Comfortable Owning Something For 10 Years, Then Don't Own It For 10 Minutes.
Years
Investing
Minutes
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.
Running
People
Desire
Investment Students Need Only Two Well-taught Courses - How To Value A Business And How To Think About Market Prices
Thinking
Two
Needs
Look At Market Fluctuations As Your Friend Rather Than Your Enemy; Profit From Folly Rather Than Participate In It.
Investment Success
Enemy
Looks
I Am Quite Serious When I Say That I Do Not Believe There Are, On The Whole Earth Besides, So Many Intensified Bores As In These United States. No Man Can Form An Adequate Idea Of The Real Meaning Of The Word, Without Coming Here.
Real
Believe
Men
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
People Do, As Long As You Have Markets, You'll Have Excesses.
Long
People
Excess
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.
Fall
Years
Next
When Forced To Choose, I Will Not Trade Even A Night's Sleep For The Chance Of Extra Profits.
Life
Sleep
Night
In A Difficult Business, No Sooner Is One Problem Solved Than Another Surfaces - Never Is There Just One Cockroach In The Kitchen.
Kitchen
Cockroaches
Problem
I Make No Effort To Predict The Course Of General Business Or The Stock Market. Period. However, Currently There Are Practices Snowballing In The Security Markets And Business World Which, While Devoid Of Short Term Predictive Value, Bother Me As To Possible Long Term Consequences.
Practice
Long
Effort
Working With People Who Cause Your Stomach To Churn Seems Much Like Marrying For Money - Probably A Bad Idea Under Any Circumstances, But Absolute Madness If You Are Already Rich.
Ideas
People
Causes
The Dominant Factors Affecting Control Valuations Are Earning Power (past And Prospective) And Asset Values.
Past
Earning
Assets
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
Do What You Love And Work For Whom You Admire The Most, And You've Given Yourself The Best Chance In Life You Can.
Chance
Given
Admire
In The Insurance Business, There Is No Statute Of Limitation On Stupidity.
Stupidity
Statutes
Limitation
Our System Works. Over Time, People Will Live Better And Better. We Have A System That Unleashes Human Potential, And Now China Has A System That Unleashes Human Potential. We Will Have Interruptions. We Overshoot And Undershoot Sometimes, But Your Kids And Grandkids Will Live Better Than You. Over Time, We Move Ahead At A Pretty Damn Rapid Rate.
Moving
Kids
People
I Mean, Hank Paulson Is In There [ Treasury] At The Wrong Time, Probably Shouldn't Have Taken The Job. He's A Friend Of Mine. But He Knows Markets, He Knows Corporations' Work, He Knows Money, And He's Got The Interests Of The Country At Heart.
Country
Jobs
Taken
Our Stay-put Behavior Reflects Our View That The Stock Market Serves As A Relocation Center At Which Money Is Moved From The Active To The Patient.
Views
Investing
Patient
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.
Running
Country
Business
Traditional Wisdom Is Long On Tradition And Short On Wisdom.
Long
Investing
Tradition
It Is To Our Advantage To Have Securities Do Nothing Price-wise For Months, Or Perhaps Years, While We Are Buying Them.
Wise
Years
Buying
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
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.
Heart
Car
Daggers
I Don't Want To Give A Lecture To This Body That's Out There. You Know, I Mean, Having Had The Heart Attack, I Want To Get It Back Functioning. And As A Practical Matter, I Mean If You Were Bear Stearns, And You Were A Shareholder, You Know, You Lost 90 To 95 Percent Of Your Money. A Good Many Lost Their Jobs. They Lost Very Cushy Lives, Many Of Them.
Jobs
Heart
Mean
First, Many In Wall Street - A Community In Which Quality Control Is Not Prized - Will Sell Investors Anything They Will Buy.
Wall
Community
Quality
Read Ben Graham And Phil Fisher Read Annual Reports, But Don't Do Equations With Greek Letters In Them.
Greek
Investing
Letters
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
Your Money Can Be Inflated Away But Your Knowledge And Talent Cannot.
Talent
A Bull Market Is Like Sex. It Feels Best Just Before It Ends.
Sex
Bulls
Ends
After 25 Years Of Buying And Supervising A Great Variety Of Businesses, Charlie [munger] And I Have Not Learned How To Solve Difficult Business Problems. What We Have Learned Is To Avoid Them. To The Extent We Have Been Successful, It Is Because We Have Concentrated On Identifying One-foot Hurdles That We Could Step Over Rather Than Because We Acquired Any Ability To Clear Seven-footers.
Successful
Feet
Years
Charlie And I Have A Number Of Filters That Things Have To Get Through Before We'll Think About Them.
Thinking
Numbers
Filters
Bad Terminology Is The Enemy Of Good Thinking.
Thinking
Enemy
Good Thinking
Tell Me Your Heroes And I'll Tell You How Your Life Will End Up
Sports
Hero
Ends
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.
Thinking
Years
People
It Is More Important To Say "no" To An Opportunity, Than To Say "yes".
Opportunity
Important
Investing
I Don't Know That I Could Draw One That's Perfect. But I'd Rather By Approximately Right Than Precisely Wrong, And It Would Be Precisely Wrong To Turn It Down.
Perfect
Would Be
Turns
My Wealth Has Come From A Combination Of Living In America, Some Lucky Genes, And Compound Interest.
America
Lucky
Wealth
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
Banking Is Very Good Business If You Don't Do Anything Dumb.
Dumb
Banking
Good Business
[the U.s. Treasury] Can Borrow Basically Unlimited Amounts. They Can Stay There For Years And Years. These Assets Will Be Worth More Money Over Time. So When Merrill Lynch Sells A Bunch Of Mortgage-related Assets At 22 Cents On The Dollar Like They Did A Month Or So Ago, The Buyer Goes - Is Going To Make Money, And He's Going To Make A Lot More Money If It Happens To Be An Institution Like The U.s. Government Which Has Very, Very Cheap Borrowing Costs.
Government
Years
Dollars
The Fed Is The Greatest Hedge Fund In History.
Feds
Fund
Hedge Fund
Does The Business Have Favourable Long Term Prospects?
Long
Doe
Investing
If You Invested In A Very Low Cost Index Fund - Where You Don't Put The Money In At One Time, But Average In Over 10 Years -you'll Do Better Than 90% Of People Who Start Investing At The Same Time.
Average
Years
People
I Don't Like What's Going On With The Executive Compensation.
Compensation
Executives
Executive Compensation
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Category
Information