Selected Quotes by Warren Buffet
"I had a great teacher in life, my father. But I had another great teacher in terms of profession in terms of Ben Graham. I was lucky enough to get the right foundation very early on. And then basically I didn't listen to anybody else. I just look in the mirror every morning and the mirror always agrees with me. And I go out and do what I believe I should be doing. And I'm not influenced by what other people think."
Warren Buffet, Life, Criticism
"Imagine that you had a car and that was the only car you'd have for your entire lifetime. Of course, you'd care for it well, changing the oil more frequently than necessary, driving carefully, etc. Now, consider that you only have one mind and one body. Prepare them for life, care for them. You can enhance your mind over time. A person's main asset is themselves, so preserve and enhance yourself."
Warren Buffet, Life
"One can best prepare themselves for the economic future by investing in your own education. If you study hard and learn at a young age, you will be in the best circumstances to secure your future."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Intelligence/Wisdom
"Read 500 pages like this every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Intelligence/Wisdom
"I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business."
Warren Buffet, Business, Intelligence/Wisdom
"The most important investment you can make is in yourself."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken."
Warren Buffet, Life
"The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes."
Warren Buffet, Life
"Tell me who your heroes are and I'll tell you who you’ll turn out to be."
Warren Buffet, Life
"You know… you keep doing the same things and you keep getting the same result over and over again."
Warren Buffet, Life
"It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results."
Warren Buffet, Goals, Success
"In the world of business, the people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love."
Warren Buffet, Business, Goals, Success
"You've gotta keep control of your time, and you can't unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life."
Warren Buffet, Life, Time, Goals
"The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything."
Warren Buffet, Success
"If you're in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%."
Warren Buffet, Society, Kindness
"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."
Warren Buffet, Life
"When trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Honesty is a very expensive gift. Don't expect it from cheap people."
Warren Buffet, Honesty
"You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong."
Warren Buffet, Goals, Life
"I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute."
Warren Buffet, Goals
"Basically, when you get to my age, you'll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you."
Warren Buffet, Love, Life, Success
"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."
Warren Buffet, Wealth, Life
"Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless."
Warren Buffet, Business
"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."
Warren Buffet, Life
"Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars."
Warren Buffet, Wealth
"It's better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction."
Warren Buffet, Goals, Life
"It's been an ideal period for investors: A climate of fear is their best friend. Those who invest only when commentators are upbeat end up paying a heavy price for meaningless reassurance."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"The best chance to deploy capital is when things are going down."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"This does not bother Charlie [Munger] and me. Indeed, we enjoy such price declines if we have funds available to increase our positions."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"The years ahead will occasionally deliver major market declines -- even panics -- that will affect virtually all stocks. No one can tell you when these traumas will occur."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Predicting rain doesn't count, building the ark does."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Life
"Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Life
"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."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Money is not everything. Make sure you earn a lot before speaking such nonsense."
Warren Buffet, Wealth
"We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Courage
"…not doing what we love in the name of greed is very poor management of our lives."
Warren Buffet, Goals, Life, Wealth
"What we learn from history is that people don't learn from history."
Warren Buffet, Intelligence/Wisdom, Society
"The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"If past history was all that is needed to play the game of money, the richest people would be librarians."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Intelligence/Wisdom
"You do things when the opportunities come along. I've had periods in my life when I've had a bundle of ideas come along, and I've had long, dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won't do a damn thing."
Warren Buffet, Opportunities, Ideas
"Half of all coin-flippers will win their first toss; none of those winners has an expectation of profit if he continues to play the game."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Keep things simple and don't swing for the fences. When promised quick profits, respond with a quick 'no.'"
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"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."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"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. It’s optimism that is the enemy of the rational buyer."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"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."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble...We want to buy them when they're on the operating table."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Widespread fear is your friend as an investor because it serves up bargain purchases."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"I won't" say if my candidate doesn't win, and probably half the time they haven't, I'm going to take my ball and go home."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"American business -- and consequently a basket of stocks -- is virtually certain to be worth far more in the years ahead."
Warren Buffet, Business, Finance
"For 240 years, it's been a terrible mistake to bet against America, and now is no time to start."
Warren Buffet, Society
"We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time."
Warren Buffet, Society
"Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble."
Warren Buffet, Opportunities
"Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Intelligence/Wisdom
"Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Intelligence/Wisdom
"You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"It's better to have a partial interest in the Hope diamond than to own all of a rhinestone."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Buy a stock the way you would buy a house. Understand and like it such that you'd be content to own it in the absence of any market."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"There is nothing wrong with a 'know nothing' investor who realizes it. The problem is when you are a 'know nothing' investor but you think you know something."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Intelligence/Wisdom
"What counts for most people in investing vs saving is not how much they know, but rather how realistically they define what they don't know."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Intelligence/Wisdom
"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."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Intelligence/Wisdom
"The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don't have to swing at everything -- you can wait for your pitch."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Success in investing doesn't correlate with IQ ... what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing."
Warren Buffet, Finance, Success
"The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult."
Warren Buffet, Life
"The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective."
Warren Buffet, Intelligence/Wisdom
"Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, 'Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.'"
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Do not take yearly results too seriously. Instead, focus on four or five-year averages."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Our favorite holding period is forever."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"If you aren't thinking about owning a stock for 10 years, don't even think about owning it for 10 minutes."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Successful investing takes time, discipline, and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can't" produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"It is a terrible mistake for investors with long-term horizons -- among them pension funds, college endowments, and savings-minded individuals -- to measure their investment' risk' by their portfolio's ratio of bonds to stocks."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"All there is to investing is picking good stocks at good times and staying with them as long as they remain good companies."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"If a business does well, the stock eventually follows."
Warren Buffet, Business, Finance
"It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price, than a fair company at a wonderful price."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"On the margin of safety, which means, don't try and drive a 9,800-pound truck over a bridge that says it's, you know, capacity: 10,000 pounds. But go down the road a little bit and find one that says, capacity: 15,000 pounds."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"The three most important words in investing are margin of safety."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"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."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre."
Warren Buffet, Business, Time
"In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield."
Warren Buffet, Business
"If returns are going to be 7 or 8 percent and you're paying 1 percent for fees, that makes an enormous difference in how much money you're going to have in retirement."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Never invest in a business you cannot understand."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"For the investor, a too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favorable business developments."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging."
Warren Buffet, Problems
"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."
Warren Buffet, Business
"Remember that the stock market is a manic depressive."
Warren Buffet, Finance
"Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1."