Top 968 Quotes & Sayings by Warren Buffett - Page 9

What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.

At this point, when treasury bills, seven day treasury bills at 1/20th of one percent, it's not because people want to earn 1/20th of one percent, it's because they trust the fact the treasury will give it back to them next week.

We make investment decisions based on our evaluation of the most profitable combination of probabilities.

Focus on return on equity, not earnings per share.

I look at everything. That's my job. I really do, every day. I think about everything.

We say we are trying to buy into businesses with excellent economics, run by honest and able people at a decent price. We buy very few securities, so we look at it as "focused" investing.

The greater the potential for reward in the value portfolio, the less risk there is.

Getting fired can produce a particularly bountiful payday for a CEO. Indeed, he can 'earn' more in that single day, while cleaning out his desk, than an American worker earns in a lifetime of cleaning toilets. Forget the old maxim about nothing succeeding like success: Today, in the executive suite, the all-too-prevalent rule is that nothing succeeds like failure.

Valuing a business is part art and part science.

We have learned to turn out lots of goods and services, but we haven't learned as well how to have everybody share in the bounty. The obligation of a society as prosperous as ours is to figure out how nobody gets left too far behind.

If you’re in the luckiest one per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.

Enjoy your work and work for whom you admire.

It is to our advantage to have securities do nothing price-wise for months, or perhaps years, while we are buying them.

Banking is very good business if you don't do anything dumb.

I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.

Writing a check separates a commitment from a conversation.

Managers that always promise to 'make the numbers' will at some point be tempted to make up the numbers.

Consciously paying more for a stock than its calculated value - in the hope that it can soon be sold for a still-higher price - should be labelled speculation

If you can tell me who your heroes are, I can tell you how you're going to turn out in life.

By periodically investing in an index fund, the know-nothing investors can actually outperform most investment professionals.

Either they're trying to con you or they're trying to con themselves.

I never buy anything unless I can fill out on a piece of paper my reasons. I may be wrong, but I would know the answer to that ...I'm paying $32 billion today for the Coca Cola Company because... If you can't answer that question, you shouldn't buy it. If you can answer that question, and you do it a few times, you'll make a lot of money.

The value of market esoterica to the consumer of investment advice is a different story. In my opinion, investment success will not be produced by arcane formulae, computer programs or signals flashed by the price behavior of stocks and markets. Rather an investor will succeed by coupling good business judgment with an ability to insulate his thoughts and behavior from the super-contagious emotions that swirl about the marketplace.

Of our 49 billion, we haven't moved any to Bitcoin

I find that the standard of living does not go up in proportion with the cost of living. The trick in life is to do things that are fun all the time.

If you want to shoot rare, fast-moving elephants, you should always carry a loaded gun.

Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the models. Beware of geeks bearing formulas.

With enough insider information and a million dollars, you can go broke in a year.

You should be unconcerned about short-term price action when you own the securities directly, just as you were unconcerned when you owned them indirectly through BPL. I think about them as businesses, not "stocks", and if the business does all right over the long term, so will the stock.

We do not view the company itself as the ultimate owner of our business assets but instead view the company as a conduit through which our shareholders own assets.

Confidence in markets and in institutions, it's a lot like oxygen. When you have it, you don't even think about it. It's indispensable. You can go years without thinking about it. When it's gone for five minutes, it's the only thing to think about.

But, surprise - none of these blockbuster events made the slightest dent in Ben Graham's investment principles. Nor did they render unsound the negotiated purchases of fine businesses at sensible prices. Imagine the cost to us, then, if we had let a fear of unknowns cause us to defer or alter the deployment of capital. Indeed, 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.

The [stock] market,like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But, unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.

My favorite time frame for holding a stock is forever.

Wall Street makes its money on activity. You make your money on inactivity.

Anything can happen in stock markets and you ought to conduct your affairs so that if the most extraordinary events happen, that you're still around to play the next day.

If you are a professional and have confidence, then I would advocate lots of concentration.

I just don't see anything available that gives any reasonable hope of delivering such a good year and I have no desire to grope around, hoping to 'get lucky' with other people's money. I am not attuned to this market environment, and I don't want to spoil a decent record by trying to play a game I don't understand just so I can go out a hero.

Market prices for stocks fluctuate at great amplitudes around intrinsic value but, over the long term, intrinsic value is virtually always reflected at some point in market price.

Shares are not mere pieces of paper. They represent part ownership of a business. So, when contemplating an investment, think like a prospective owner.

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.

If you do smart things and use leverage and do one wrong thing along the way, it could wipe you out, because anything times zero is zero. But it's reinforcing when the people around you are doing it successfully, you're doing it successfully, and it's a lot like Cinderella at the ball.

None of this means, however, that a business or stock is an intelligent purchase simply because it is unpopular; a contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling. Unfortunately, Bertrand Russell's observation about life in general applies with unusual force in the financial world: "Most men would rather die than think. Many do."

Our approach is very much profiting from lack of change rather than from change.

The Fed is the greatest hedge fund in history.

Buy stocks like you buy your groceries, not like you buy your perfume.

I tell college students, when you get to be my age you will be successful if the people who you hope to have love you, do love you.

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.

Time is your friend, impulse is your enemy. Take advantage of compound interest and don't be captivated by the siren song of the market.

You don't need to be an expert in order to achieve satisfactory investment returns. But if you aren't, you must recognize your limitations and follow a course certain to work reasonably well. Keep things simple and don't swing for the fences.

Occasionally, a man must rise above principles.

Well, it may be all right in practice, but it will never work in theory

A lot of people disagree with me on this, I believe in mark to market.

It's never paid to bet against America.

When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.

You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you.

In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable 'moats'.

The dominant factors affecting control valuations are earning power (past and prospective) and asset values.

We look for things I can understand. A lot of businesses I don't understand.

You should look at stocks as small pieces of business.