Top 968 Quotes & Sayings by Warren Buffett - Page 3

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.

We continue to make more money when snoring than when active.

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.

John Maynard Keynes essentially said, don't try and figure out what the market is doing. Figure out a business you understand, and concentrate.

Only when you combine sound intellect with emotional discipline do you get rational behavior.

Our goal is to find an outstanding business at a sensible price, not a mediocre business at a bargain price.

The Noah rule: Predicting rain doesn't count; building arks does.

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies.

Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill.

The smartest side to take in a bidding war is the losing side.

Look for companies with high profit margins.

Always associate yourself with people who are better than you.

In the world of business, the people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love.

Read 500 pages every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up like compound interest.

Never depend on single income. Make investment to create a second source.

Traditional wisdom is long on tradition and short on wisdom.

I've learned mainly by reading myself. So I don't think I have any original ideas. Certainly, I talk about reading Graham. I've read Phil Fisher. So I've gotten a lot of my ideas from reading. You can learn a lot from other people. In fact, I think if you learn basically from other people, you don't have to get too many new ideas on your own. You can just apply the best of what you see.

Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money.

Everybody's got a different circle of competence. The important thing is not how big the circle is. The important thing is staying inside the circle.

You're neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You're right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right - that's the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don't have to worry about anybody else.

I made my first investment at age eleven. I was wasting my life up until then.

I read annual reports of the company I'm looking at and I read the annual reports of the competitors - that is the main source of material.

Forecasts usually tell us more of the forecaster than of the forecast

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.

[Gold] 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.

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.

Well, I think the biggest mistake is not learning the habits of saving properly early. Because saving is a habit. And then, trying to get rich quick. It's pretty easy to get well-to-do slowly. But it's not easy to get rich quick.

It's much easier to stay out of trouble now than to get out of trouble later.

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

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.

It is better to point out your own mistakes than have somebody else do it.

Diversification may preserve wealth, but concentration builds wealth.

Games are won by players who focus on the playing field -- not by those whose eyes are glued to the scoreboard.

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.

If you want your business to survive for 100 years, you've got to make it through every single day for 100 years. It's not enough to do it 99.9% of the time.

it's a good idea to review past mistakes before committing new ones.

Money is not everything. Make sure you earn a lot before speaking such nonsense.

The key to success is emotional stability.

A bull market is like sex. It feels best just before it ends.

Stocks are the only thing that people are happy to buy when the price goes up.

If you expect to continue to purchase stocks throughout your life, you should welcome price declines as a way to add stocks more cheaply to your portfolio.

Charlie and I have a number of filters that things have to get through before we'll think about them.

I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am no investor.

When investing, pessimism is your friend, euphoria the enemy.

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.

Investing requires qualities of temperament way more than it requires qualities of intellect.

Buy companies with strong histories of profitability and with a dominant business franchise.

An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it.

Activity is the enemy of investment returns.

Other guys read Playboy. I read annual reports.

The Happiest people DO NOT necessarily have the BEST THINGS. They simply APPRECIATE the things they have.

Never be afraid to ask for too much when selling or offer too little when buying.

The greatest Enemies of the Equity investor are Expenses and Emotions.

Much success can be attributed to inactivity. Most investors cannot resist the temptation to constantly buy and sell.

The dumbest reason in the world to buy a stock is because it's going up.

I want to be able to explain my mistakes. This means I do only the things I completely understand.

Emotional makeup is more important than technical skill

To be successful, you should concentrate on the world of companies, not arcane accounting mathematics.

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.

The ability to say no is a tremendous advantage for an investor.