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Warren Buffett
Warren Edward Buffett (born August 30, 1930) is a U.S. investor, businessman, and philanthropist. He is one of the most successful investors in history, the largest shareholder and C.E.O. of Berkshire Hathaway, and is currently ranked by Forbes as one of the richest human beings on Earth with an estimated net worth of approximately thirty-seven billion dollars (2009). Buffett is often called the "Oracle of Omaha" or the "Sage of Omaha" and is noted for his adherence to the value investing philosophy and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth. In fact, there's a great amount of value that one can acquire by just reading his quotes. Here's a compilation:
- On History
- 1.0
- If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.
- On Heroes
- 2.0
- I was lucky to have the right heroes. Tell me who your heroes are and I'll tell you how you'll turn out to be. The qualities of the one you admire are the traits that you, with a little practice, can make your own, and that, if practiced, will become habit-forming.
- On Destiny
- 3.0
- Getting turned down by Harvard Business School was one of the best things that could have happened to me; bad luck can turn out to be good.
- On Reputation
- 4.0
- It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
- On Human Behaviour
- 5.0
- A story that was passed down from Ben Graham illustrates the lemming like behavior of the crowd: "Let me tell you the story of the oil prospector who met St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. When told his occupation, St. Peter said, "Oh, I'm really sorry. You seem to meet all the tests to get into heaven. But we've got a terrible problem. See that pen over there? That's where we keep the oil prospectors waiting to get into heaven. And it's filled—we haven't got room for even one more." The oil prospector thought for a minute and said, "Would you mind if I just said four words to those folks?" "I can't see any harm in that," said St. Pete. So the old-timer cupped his hands and yelled out, "Oil discovered in hell!" Immediately, the oil prospectors wrenched the lock off the door of the pen and out they flew, flapping their wings as hard as they could for the lower regions. "You know, that's a pretty good trick," St. Pete said. "Move in. The place is yours. You've got plenty of room." The old fellow scratched his head and said, "No. If you don't mind, I think I'll go along with the rest of 'em. There may be some truth to that rumor after all.
- 6.0
- 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.
- 7.0
- The fact that people will be full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable.
- On Company
- 8.0
- 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.
- On Risk
- 9.0
- Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.
- On Cardinal Laws
- 10.0
- Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.
- On Perspectives
- 11.0
- 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.
- 12.0
- In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
- 13.0
- Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.
- On Value
- 14.0
- Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
- On Starting Up
- 15.0
- I gave a talk last year; some student at Harvard asked me, 'Who should I go to work for?' I said go to work for whoever you admire the most. I got a call from the dean about two weeks later. He said, 'What are you telling these kids? They're all becoming self-employed.'
- 16.0
- I asked him what he wanted to do for his career, and he replied that he wanted to go into a particular field, but thought he should work for McKinsey for a few years first to add to his resume. To me that's like saving sex for your old age. It makes no sense.
- On Money
- 17.0
- 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.
- 18.0
- I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.
- On Markets
- 19.0
- It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.
- 20.0
- Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.
- On Accountability
- 21.0
- The perfect amount of money to leave children is enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.
- On Time
- 22.0
- Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.
- On the Street
- 23.0
- Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.
- 24.0
- 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.'
- On Investments
- 25.0
- Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, 'I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.' If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.
- 26.0
- When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.
- 27.0
- Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.
- 28.0
- 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.
- 29.0
- 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.
- On Society
- 30.0
- 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.
- On Doing
- 31.0
- You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.
- 32.0
- 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.
- On Goals
- 33.0
- 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.
- On Philanthropy
- 34.0
- I don't have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It's like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GNP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don't do that though.
- On Cigarettes
- 35.0
- I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty.
- On Gold
- 36.0
- It gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.
- On Bridge
- 37.0
- I wouldn't mind going to jail if I had three cellmates who played bridge.
- On Success
- 38.0
- Much success can be attributed to inactivity. Most investors cannot resist the temptation to constantly buy and sell.
- 39.0
- The best way to get success is to deserve success. I have to look them in the eye and decide whether they love the business or they love the money. It's fine if they love the money, but they have to love the business more. Why do I come in at 7 every morning, I can't wait to get to work. It's because I get to paint my own painting and I like applause.
- On Happiness
- 40.0
- I just naturally want to do things that make sense. In my personal life too, I don’t care what other rich people are doing. I don’t want a 405 foot boat just because someone else has a 400 foot boat.
- On Simple Pleasures
- 41.0
- I have simple pleasures. I play bridge online for 12 hours a week. Bill and I play, he's "chalengr" and I'm "tbone".
- On Life
- 42.0
- I enjoy what I do, I tap dance to work every day. I work with people I love, doing what I love. I spend my time thinking about the future, not the past. The future is exciting. As Bertrand Russell says, "Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get." I won the ovarian lottery the day I was born and so did all of you. We're all successful, intelligent, and educated. To focus on what you don't have is a terrible mistake. With the gifts all of us have, if you are unhappy, it's your own fault.
