Top 968 Quotes & Sayings by Warren Buffett - Page 5

Taking jobs to build up your resume is the same as saving up sex for old age.

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.

There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.

If you're extremely rich, and you have got children, my theory was, you give them enough so they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing.

There are a few investment managers, of course, who are very good - though in the short run, it's difficult to determine whether a great record is due to luck or talent. Most advisors, however, are far better at generating high fees than they are at generating high returns. In truth, their core competence is salesmanship. Rather than listen to their siren songs, investors - large and small - should instead read Jack Bogle's The Little Book of Common Sense Investing.

You can be sure that over the next 10 years, you'll see something that you did not think was possible.

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.

Be brave when others are afraid, and afraid when others are brave.

It’s not that I want money. It’s the fun of making money and watching it grow.

I don't have my diploma from the University of Nebraska hanging on my office wall, and I don't have my diploma from Columbia up there either-but I do have my Dale Carnegie graduation certificate proudly displayed.

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. I do it because I like this kind of life.

Very successful people say no to almost everything.

Investors, of course, can, by their own behavior make stock ownership highly risky. And many do. Active trading, attempts to "time" market movements, inadequate diversification, the payment of high and unnecessary fees to managers and advisors, and the use of borrowed money can destroy the decent returns that a life-long owner of equities would otherwise enjoy. Indeed, borrowed money has no place in the investor's tool kit.

Our approach is very much profiting from lack of change rather than from change. With Wrigley chewing gum, it's the lack of change that appeals to me. I don't think it is going to be hurt by the Internet. That's the kind of business I like.

Take the high road; it's far less crowded.

When it's raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble.

Investing is laying out money now to get more money back in the future.

Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner.

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.

The truth is, everything that has happened in my life... that I thought was a crushing event at the time, has turned out for the better.

People always ask me where they should go to work, and I always tell them to go to work for whom they admire the most.

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

You should invest like a Catholic marries: for life.

Things you like to do should be a hobby of yours, but things the world does should be a business of yours.

A great investment opportunity occurs when a marvelous business encounters a one-time huge, but solvable problem.

It's easier to create money than to spend it.

You will be right, over the course of many transactions, if your hypotheses are correct, your facts are correct, and your reasoning is correct. True conservatism is only possible through knowledge and reason.

Never give up searching for the job that you're passionate about.

A low-cost index fund is the most sensible equity investment for the great majority of investors. My mentor, Ben Graham, took this position many years ago, and everything I have seen since convinces me of its truth.

Mr. Market is kind of a drunken psycho. Some days he gets very enthused, some days he gets very depressed. And when he get really enthused you sell to him, and if he gets depressed, you buy from him. There's no moral taint attached to that.

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.

Focus on your customers and lead your people as though their lives depend on your success.

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.

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.

When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night's sleep for the chance of extra profits.

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.

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.

If you buy the things you don't need, you will soon be selling the things that you need.

Always invest for the long term.

Buy a business, don't rent stocks.

Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends.

It is madness to risk losing what you need in pursuing what you simply desire.

Do what you would do for free, having passion for what you do is the most important thing.

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

Gold is a way of going long on fear, and it has been a pretty good way of going long on fear from time to time. But you really have to hope people become more afraid in a year or two years than they are now. And if they become more afraid you make money, if they become less afraid you lose money, but the gold itself doesn’t produce anything.

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

It is easier to rationalize than it is to be rational.

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.

Cash combined with courage in a time of crisis is priceless.

Never risk what you have and need for what we don't have and don't need.

Money to some extent sometimes let you be in more interesting environments. But it can't change how many people love you or how healthy you are.

Don't pass up something that's attractive today because you think you will find something way more attractive tomorrow.

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 time to buy stocks is consistently over time. You should never buy your investments with the idea, 'I have to get a certain return.' You should look at the best return possible and learn to live with that. But you should not try to make your investments earn what you feel you need. It doesn't work that way. The stock doesn't know you own it.

Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.

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.

In investing, just as in baseball, to put runs on the scoreboard, one must watch the playing field, not the scoreboard.

I know what I want to do and it makes sense to get going.

Problems in a company are like cockroaches in the kitchen. You will never find just one

I have no use whatsoever for projections or forecasts. They create an illusion of apparent precision. The more meticulous they are, the more concerned you should be. We never look at projections, but we care very much about, and look very deeply at, track records. If a company has a lousy track record, but a very bright future, we will miss the opportunity.