Warren Buffett

“I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about.”

“Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction.”

“Risk is a part of God's game, alike for men and nations.”

“The only way to get love is to be lovable. It's very irritating if you have a lot of money. You'd like to think you could write a check: 'I'll buy a million dollars' worth of love.' But it doesn't work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get.”

“The only way to get love is to be lovable. It's very irritating if you have a lot of money. You'd like to think you could write a check: 'I'll buy a million dollars' worth of love.' But it doesn't work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get.”

“Risk is a part of God's game, alike for men and nations.”

“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”

“Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.”

“The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.”

“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.”

“I call investing 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 lost. All day you wait for the pitch you like; then when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it.”

“You're dealing with a lot of silly people in the marketplace; it's like a great big casino and everyone else is boozing. If you can stick with Pepsi, you should be O.K.”

“Draw a circle around the businesses you understand and then eliminate those that fail to qualify on the basis of value, good management and limited exposure to hard times. … Buy into a company because you want to own it, not because you want the stock to go up. … People have been successful investors because they've stuck with successful companies. Sooner or later the market mirrors the business.”

“Love is the greatest advantage a parent can give.”

“I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. …\xa0It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty.”

“Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

“Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results.”

“I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: if you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”

“It’s a game of a million inferences. There are a lot of things to draw inferences from —\xa0cards played and not played. These inferences tell you something about the probabilities. It's got to be the best intellectual exercise out there. You're seeing through new situations every ten minutes. Bridge is about weighing gain/loss ratios. You're doing calculations all the time.”

“Wall Street is the only place that people ride to work in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”

“Investors making purchases in an overheated market need to recognize that it may often take an extended period for the value of even an outstanding company to catch up with the price they paid.”

“We don't get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we'll wait, we'll wait indefinitely.”

“Success in investing doesn't correlate with I.Q. once you're above the level of 125. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.”

“If I was running $1 million today, or $10 million for that matter, I'd be fully invested. Anyone who says that size does not hurt investment performance is selling. The highest rates of return I've ever achieved were in the 1950s. I killed the Dow. You ought to see the numbers. But I was investing peanuts then. It's a huge structural advantage not to have a lot of money. I think I could make you 50% a year on $1 million. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.”

“I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.”

“We're more comfortable in that kind of business. It means we miss a lot of very big winners. But we wouldn't know how to pick them out anyway. It also means we have very few big losers - and that's quite helpful over time. We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff.”

“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.”

“I wouldn't mind going to jail if I had three cellmates who played bridge. … The approach and strategies [of bridge and stock investing] are very similar. In the stock market you do not base your decisions on what the market is doing, but on what you think is rational. With bridge, you need to adhere to a disciplined bidding system. While there is no one best system, there is one that works best for you. Once you choose a system, you need to stick with it.”

“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.”

“It's class warfare. My class is winning, but they shouldn't be.”

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.”

“You couldn't advance in a finance department in this country unless you taught that the world was flat.”

“The 400 of us pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you're in the luckiest 1 percent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 percent.”

“People will always try to stop you doing the right thing if it is unconventional.”

“You want to be greedy when others are fearful. You want to be fearful when others are greedy. It's that simple. … They're pretty fearful. In fact, in my adult lifetime, I don't think I've ever seen people as fearful economically as they are right now.”

“I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.”

“I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that any time there's a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”

“Our performance, relatively, is likely to be better in a bear market than in a bull market … in a year when the general market had a substantial advance, I would be well satisfied to match the advance of the averages.”

“Our favorite holding period is forever.”

“I make no attempt to forecast the general market — my efforts are devoted to finding undervalued securities. However, I do believe that widespread public belief in the Inevitability of profits from investments in stocks will lead to eventual trouble. Should this occur, prices, but not intrinsic values in my opinion, of even undervalued securities can be expected to be substantially affected.”

“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

“Management's objective is to achieve a return on capital over the long term which averages somewhat higher than that of American industry generally — while utilizing sound accounting and debt policies.”

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.”

“An irresistible footnote: in 1971, pension fund managers invested a record 122% of net funds available in equities — at full prices they couldn't buy enough of them. In 1974, after the bottom had fallen out, they committed a then record low of 21% to stocks.”

“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”

“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.”

“We have tried occasionally to buy toads at bargain prices with results that have been chronicled in past reports. Clearly our kisses fell flat. We have done well with a couple of princes — but they were princes when purchased. At least our kisses didn’t turn them into toads. And, finally, we have occasionally been quite successful in purchasing fractional interests in easily-identifiable princes at toad-like prices.”

“Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.”

“It’s simply to say that managers and investors alike must understand that accounting numbers is the beginning, not the end, of business valuation.”

“When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”

“Ben's Mr. Market allegory may seem out-of-date in today's investment world, in which most professionals and academicians talk of efficient markets, dynamic hedging and betas. Their interest in such matters is understandable, since techniques shrouded in mystery clearly have value to the purveyor of investment advice. After all, what witch doctor has ever achieved fame and fortune by simply advising "Take two aspirins"?”

“I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.”

“Over the years, Charlie [Munger, Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman] and I have observed many accounting-based frauds of staggering size. Few of the perpetrators have been punished; many have not even been censured. It has been far safer to steal large sums with pen than small sums with a gun.”

“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.”

“After 25 years of buying and supervising a great variety of businesses, Charlie 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 concentrated on identifying one-foot hurdles that we could step over because we acquired any ability to clear seven-footers.”

“I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.”

“The most common cause of low prices is pessimism — 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's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”

“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.”

“Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.”

“We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.”

“The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.”

“Just because Charlie and I can clearly see dramatic growth ahead for an industry does not mean we can judge what its profit margins and returns on capital will be as a host of competitors battle for supremacy. At Berkshire we will stick with businesses whose profit picture for decades to come seems reasonably predictable. Even then, we will make plenty of mistakes.”

“Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.”

“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 (bearing in mind that there are really only three kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who can't).”

“We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.”

“Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. The calculation of intrinsic value, though, is not so simple. As our definition suggests, intrinsic value is an estimate rather than a precise figure, and it is additionally an estimate that must be changed if interest rates move or forecasts of future cash flows are revised.”

“The only time to buy these is on a day with no 'y' in it.”

“We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet.”

“Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”

“Those who attended [the annual meeting] last year saw your Chairman pitch to Ernie Banks. This encounter proved to be the titanic duel that the sports world had long awaited. After the first few pitches — which were not my best, but when have I ever thrown my best? — I fired a brushback at Ernie just to let him know who was in command. Ernie charged the mound, and I charged the plate. But a clash was avoided because we became exhausted before reaching each other.”

“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.”

“Instead, we try to apply Aesop's 2,600-year-old equation to opportunities in which we have reasonable confidence as to how many birds are in the bush and when they will emerge (a formulation that my grandsons would probably update to "A girl in a convertible is worth five in the phonebook.").”

“If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.”

“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.”

“But a pin lies in wait for every bubble. And when the two eventually meet, a new wave of investors learns some very old lessons: First, many in Wall Street — a community in which quality control is not prized — will sell investors anything they will buy. Second, speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest.”

“When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.”

“After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.”

“Beware of geeks bearing formulas.”

“Most companies are saddled with institutional constraints. A company's history, for example, may commit it to an industry that now offers limited opportunity. A more common problem is a shareholder constituency that pressures its manager to dance to Wall Street's tune. Many CEOs resist, but others give in and adopt operating and capital-allocation policies far different from those they would choose if left to themselves.”

“Our favorite holding period is forever.”

“Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.”

“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.”

“Size seems to make many organizations slow-thinking, resistant to change and smug.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I sent one e-mail in my life. I sent it to Jeff Raikes at Microsoft, and it ended up in court in Minneapolis, so I am one for one.”

“I've reluctantly discarded the notion of my continuing to manage the portfolio after my death — abandoning my hope to give new meaning to the term "thinking outside the box."”

“The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.”

“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.”

“If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.”

“Putting people into homes, though a desirable goal, shouldn’t be our country’s primary objective. Keeping them in their homes should be the ambition.”

“I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about.”

“We never want to count on the kindness of strangers in order to meet tomorrow’s obligations. When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night’s sleep for the chance of extra profits.”

“The big question about how people behave is whether they've got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.”

“Upon leaving [the derivatives business], our feelings about the business mirrored a line in a country song: "I liked you better before I got to know you so well."”

“If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.”

“I eat like a normal 6-year-old, but if you look at the mortality statistics, I mean, 6-year-olds don’t die very often.”

“Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, 'Too much of a good thing can be wonderful'.”

“Confidence comes back one at a time, but fear, is instantaneous.”

“You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in - in 2007, we just didn't know it was uncertain. It was - uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn't know it.”

“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.”

“Predicting rain doesn't count. Building arks does.”

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”

“Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.”

“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

“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.”

“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”

“Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”

“I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute.”

“In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.”

“The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.”

“It's never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but its not always a smooth ride.”

“The only way to get love is to be lovable. It's very irritating if you have a lot of money. You'd like to think you could write a check: 'I'll buy a million dollars' worth of love.' But it doesn't work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get.”

“If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.”

“The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves - and the better the teacher, the better the student body.”

“The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth.”

“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.”

“Value is what you get.”

“Risk is a part of God's game, alike for men and nations.”

“I just think that - when a country needs more income and we do, we're only taking in 15 percent of GDP, I mean, that - that - when a country needs more income, they should get it from the people that have it.”

“Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction.”

“The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.”

“A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“We're still in a recession. We're not gonna be out of it for a while, but we will get out.”

“We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.”

“I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.”

“Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.”

“I am a huge bull on this country. We will not have a double-dip recession at all. I see our businesses coming back almost across the board.”

“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.”

“Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We'll break out of it. It takes time.”

“Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it's not going to get the business.”

“When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”

“I think that both parties should declare the debt limit as a political weapon of mass destruction which can't be used. I mean, it is silly to have a country that has 237 years building up its reputation and then have people threaten to tear it down because they're not getting some other matter.”

“You have no ability, if you're a financial institution and you're threatened with criminal prosecution, you have no ability to negotiate.”

“We've used up a lot of bullets. And we talk about stimulus. But the truth is, we're running a federal deficit that's 9 percent of GDP. That is stimulative as all get out. It's more stimulative than any policy we've followed since World War II.”

“I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of - of American capitalism.”

“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.'”

“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.”

“The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.”

“Time is the friend of the wonderful business, and the enemy of the mediocre one.”

“Time is the friend of the wonderful business and the enemy of the mediocre one.”

“Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it's not going to get the business.”

“The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.”

“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”