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

-Warren Buffett

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You've Got The Right

Warren Buffett

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

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

We Have Embraced The 21st Century By Entering Such Cutting-edge Industries As Brick, Carpet, Insulation And Paint. Try To Control Your Excitement.

I Checked The Actuarial Tables, And The Lowest Death Rate Is Among Six-year-olds. So I Decided To Eat Like A Six-year-old.

The Noah Rule: Predicting Rain Doesn't Count; Building Arks Does.

I Never Try To Predict The Market.

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

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.

When They Get Their Ego Involved, People Do Things They Shouldn't Do.

You Should Look At Stocks As Small Pieces Of Business.

The Most Common Cause Of Low Prices Is Pessimism - Some Times Pervasive, Some Times 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. It's Optimism That Is The Enemy Of The Rational Buyer.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I Am Not Worried About The Country. I'm Just Worried About Anything That Gums Up The Potential Of The Country. And Right Now, It's Pretty Gummed Up.

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.

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

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.

Don't Pass Up Something That's Attractive Today Because You Think You Will Find Something Way More Attractive Tomorrow.

Does The Business Have A Consistent Operating History?

If You're An Investor, You're Looking On What The Asset Is Going To Do, If You're A Speculator, You're Commonly Focusing On What The Price Of The Object Is Going To Do, And That's Not Our Game.

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

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

At This Point, When Treasury Bills, Seven Day Treasury Bills At 1/20th Of One Percent, It's Not Because People Want To Earn 1/20th Of One Percent, It's Because They Trust The Fact The Treasury Will Give It Back To Them Next Week.

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.

Only When You Combine Sound Intellect With Emotional Discipline Do You Get Rational Behavior.

Charlie And I Decided Long Ago That In An Investment Lifetime, It's Too Hard To Make Hundreds Of Smart Decisions. That Judgment Became Ever More Compelling As Berkshire's Capital Mushroomed And The Universe Of Investments That Could Significantly Affect Our Results Shrank Dramatically. Therefore, We Adopted A Strategy That Required Our Being Smart And Not Too Smart At That, Only A Very Few Times. Indeed, We Now Settle For One Good Idea A Year.

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.

You Should Be Unconcerned About Short-term Price Action When You Own The Securities Directly, Just As You Were Unconcerned When You Owned Them Indirectly Through Bpl. I Think About Them As Businesses, Not "stocks", And If The Business Does All Right Over The Long Term, So Will The Stock.

There Is No Perfect Mathematical Formula For Pricing A Business.

When Bills Come Due, Only Cash Is Legal Tender. Don't Leave Home Without It.

Never Invest In A Business You Can't Understand

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

Always Invest For The Long Term.

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.

I Mean, They Were Getting The Mortgage Of Some Guy In Omaha, You Know, Securitized A Couple Of Times. I Mean He Had All These - They Had All These Types From Wall Street, You Know, And They Had Advanced Degrees, And They Look Very Alert, And They Came With These - They Came With These Things That Said Gamma And Alpha And Sigma And All That. And All I Can Say Is Beware Of Geeks, You Know, Bearing Formulas. They've Heard That In Europe.

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.

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.

Intrinsic Value

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.

A Lot Of Great Fortunes In The World Have Been Made By Owning A Single Wonderful Business. If You Understand The Business, You Don't Need To Own Very Many Of Them.

I Mean You Know At Midnight Everything Is Going To Turn To Pumpkins And Mice; Right? But If The Evening Goes Along, I Mean, You Know, The Guys Look Better All The Time, The Music Sounds Better, It's More And More Fun, You Think Why The Hell Should I Leave At Quarter Of 12. I'll Leave At Two Minutes To 12. But The Trouble Is, There Are No Clocks On The Wall. And Everybody Thinks They're Going To Leave At Two Minutes To 12.

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.

If You Don't Make Mistakes You Can't Make Decisions.

People Always Should Know Better. People Don't Get - They Don't Get Smarter About Things That Get As Basic As Greed.

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.

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.

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

As One Of My Older Friends Says, "nostalgia Just Isn't What It Used To Be." Let's Take A Stab At It, Anyway.

Earnings Can Be Pliable As Putty When A Charlatan Heads The Company Reporting Them.

Whatever You Like To Do, Make It A Hobby And Whatever The World Likes To Do, Make It A Business.

Our Goal Is To Find An Outstanding Business At A Sensible Price, Not A Mediocre Business At A Bargain Price.

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

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

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

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?

Never Lie Under Any Circumstances.

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

If You Can't Communicate And Talk To Other People And Get Across Your Ideas, You're Giving Up Your Potential.

If You Owe Money, You Can't Pay Them Out. You Just Pay For Everything, You Do Smart Things, You Eventually Get Very Rich.

You Ought To Be Able To Explain Why You’re Taking The Job You’re Taking, Why You’re Making The Investment You’re Making, Or Whatever It May Be. And If It Can’t Stand Applying Pencil To Paper, You’d Better Think It Through Some More. And If You Can’t Write An Intelligent Answer To Those Questions, Don’t Do It.

Never Do Anything In Life If You Would Be Ashamed Of Seeing It Printed On The Front Page Of Your Hometown Newspaper For Your Friends And Family To See.

Family And Friends

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

Investing Money

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Emotional Makeup Is More Important Than Technical Skill

The Most Important Thing In Terms Of Your Circle Of Competence Is Not How Large The Area Of It Is, But How Well You've Defined The Perimeter.

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.

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.

The Future Is Never Clear; You Pay A Very High Price In The Stock Market For A Cheery Consensus. Uncertainty Actually Is The Friend Of The Buyer Of Long-term Values.

We 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.

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

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

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.

The Worst Sort Of Business Is One That Grows Rapidly, Requires Significant Capital To Engender The Growth, And Then Earns Little Or No Money. Think Airlines. Here A Durable Competitive Advantage Has Proven Elusive Ever Since The Days Of The Wright Brothers. Indeed, If A Farsighted Capitalist Had Been Present At Kitty Hawk, He Would Have Done His Successors A Huge Favor By Shooting Orville Down.

We Believe That According The Name 'investors' To Institutions That Trade Actively Is Like Calling Someone Who Repeatedly Engages In One-night Stands A 'romantic.'

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

You Don't Have To Be A Genius To Invest Well

Valuing A Business Is Part Art And Part Science.

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

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.

Asking For Financial Advice From A Financial Planner Is Like Asking A Barber If You Need A Hair Cut.

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

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.

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.

Too Often, A Vast Collection Of Possessions Ends Up Possessing Its Owner.

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

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

A Very Rich Person Should Leave His Kids Enough To Do Anything, But Not Enough To Do Nothing.

Resolution Trust Company Was Set Up To Liquidate A Bunch Of Assets That The Government Had Inherited Because The Savings And Loans Went Broke.

There Are 309 Million People Out There That Are Trying To Improve Their Lot In Life. And We've Got A System That Allows Them To Do It.

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.

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

What's Nice About Investing Is You Don't Have To Swing At Every Pitch.

We Really Can Say No In 10 Seconds Or So To 90%+ Of All The Things That Come Along Simply Because We Have These Filters.

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

My Father Was The Best Person I've Ever Known.

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

The Only Way To Be Loved Is To Be Loveable, Which Really Irritates Me.

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

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

If Principles Can Become Dated, They're Not Principles.

We've Got A Wonderful Economic Formula In This Country.

If You Get To My Age In Life And Nobody Thinks Well Of You, I Don't Care How Big Your Bank Account Is, Your Life Is A Disaster.

A Pack Of Lemmings Looks Like A Group Of Rugged Individualists Compared With Wall Street When It Gets A Concept In Its Teeth.

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.

It Takes 20 Years To Build A Reputation And Five Minutes To Ruin It. If You Think About That, You'll Do Things Differently.

America Should Stand For More Than Just Wealth.

Success Is Having People Love You That You Want To Have Love You.

If Book Knowledge Made Great Investors, Than The Librarians Would All Be Rich.

Yeah, We Don't Consider Many Stupid Things. I Mean, We Get Rid Of 'em Fast...just Getting Rid Of The Nonsense -- Just Figuring Out That If People Call You And Say, 'i've Got This Great, Wonderful Idea', You Don't Spend 10 Minutes Once You Know In The First Sentence That It Isn't A Great, Wonderful Idea...don't Be Polite And Go Through The Whole Process.

Look For Companies With High Profit Margins.

The Single Most Important Decision In Evaluating A Business Is Pricing Power.

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.

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.

If You Aren't Willing To Own A Stock For Ten Years, Don't Even Think About Owning It For Ten Minutes. Put Together A Portfolio Of Companies Whose Aggregate Earnings March Upward Over The Years, And So Also Will The Portfolio's Market Value.

I Choose To Work With Every Single Person That I Work With. That Ends Up Being The Most Important Factor. I Don't Interact With People I Don't Like Or Admire. That's The Key. It's Like Marrying.

The Plan Itself Is Opportunism. There Is No Plan Before That.

The Key To Success Is Emotional Stability.

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.

The Speed At Which A Business Success Is Recognized, Furthermore, Is Not That Important As Long As The Company's Intrinsic Value Is Increasing At A Satisfactory Rate. In Fact, Delayed Recognition Can Be An Advantage: It May Give Us The Chance To Buy More Of A Good Thing At A Bargain Price.

People Should Always Know Better.

I Would Say That An Rfc-like Thing Might Make Sense. I Probably Would Do It Myself. But I Don't Think Trying To Combine That With What's Going Through Now, I Think What Is Needed Now Is Liquidity.

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.

Buy Companies With Strong Histories Of Profitability And With A Dominant Business Franchise.

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

Our Future Rates Of Gain Will Fall Far Short Of Those Achieved In The Past. Berkshire's Capital Base Is Now Simply Too Large To Allow Us To Earn Truly Outsized Returns. If You Believe Otherwise, You Should Consider A Career In Sales But Avoid One In Mathematics.

We Enjoy The Process Far More Than The Proceeds.

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.

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

I Have A Wonderful Family. I Have A Job That I Love And Wonderful People Who Help Me With It. It Can't Get Any Better Than That.

That Goes Back To 1932, Although It Was Really Implemented In '33 Under Jesse Jones, And It Invested In Mostly Banks Initially And Preferred Stock And That Sort Of Thing. So There Are Two Things Needed In The System, The One That's Needed Overwhelmingly Is Liquidity. I Mean, When People Are Trying To [unintelligible], There Has To Be Somebody There To Buy.

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

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

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

In Looking For People To Hire, Look For Three Qualities: Integrity, Intelligence And Energy. And If They Don't Have The First, The Other Two Will Kill You.

Inactivity Strikes Us As Intelligent Behavior.

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.

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

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

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.

The Secret To Happiness Is Having Low Expectations.

Investors Have To Remember: Corporate Profits Are Going Up, But Stocks Are Going Up Faster. How Can That Continue Indefinitely? Investors Can Only Earn What Companies Themselves Can Earn; The Government Or The Markets Themselves Don't Kick Anything In. How Can You Get Anything More Out Of A Farm Than What It Grows?

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

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

Your Money Can Be Inflated Away But Your Knowledge And Talent Cannot.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Critical Investment Factor Is Determining The Intrinsic Value Of A Business And Paying A Fair Or Bargain Price.

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

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?

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

Take The High Road; It's Far Less Crowded.

Taking The High Road

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.

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

I Could End The Deficit In 5 Minutes. You Just Pass A Law That Says That Anytime There Is A Deficit Of More Than 3% Of Gdp All Sitting Members Of Congress Are Ineligible For Reelection.

Wall Street Is The Only Place That People Ride To In A Rolls Royce To Get Advice From Those Who Take The Subway.

Investing Money

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

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

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

Sound Investing Can Make You Very Wealthy If You're Not In Too Big A Hurry

The 19th Century Belonged To England, The 20th Century Belonged To The U.s., And The 21st Century Belongs To China. Invest Accordingly.

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.

The Ability To Say No Is A Tremendous Advantage For An Investor.

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

Passion For What You Do

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

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

I Make Plenty Of Mistakes And I'll Make Plenty More Mistakes, Too. That's Part Of The Game. You've Just Got To Make Sure That The Right Things Overcome The Wrong Ones.

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.

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

In Economics, You Always Want To Ask 'and Then What?'

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

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

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.")

If You Do Smart Things And Use Leverage And Do One Wrong Thing Along The Way, It Could Wipe You Out, Because Anything Times Zero Is Zero. But It's Reinforcing When The People Around You Are Doing It Successfully, You're Doing It Successfully, And It's A Lot Like Cinderella At The Ball.

The Smartest Side To Take In A Bidding War Is The Losing Side.

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.

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

If I Taught A Class, On My Final Exam I Would Take An Internet Company And Ask, 'how Much Is This Company Worth?' Anyone Who Would Answer, I Would Flunk.

We're Perfectly Willing To Trade Away A Big Payoff For A Certain Payoff.

Two Rules: 1. Preserve The Principal 2. When In Doubt, See Rule #1.

We Say We Are Trying To Buy Into Businesses With Excellent Economics, Run By Honest And Able People At A Decent Price. We Buy Very Few Securities, So We Look At It As "focused" Investing.

You Have To Be Able To Communicate In Life And Probably Schools Underemphasize That. If You Can't Talk To People Or Write, You're Giving Up Your Potential.

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.

I Know What I Want To Do And It Makes Sense To Get Going.

I Like To Go For Cinches. I Like To Shoot Fish In A Barrel. But I Like To Do It After The Water Has Run Out.

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.

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Russell T Davies

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