You need to have a passionate interest in why things are happening. That cast of mind, kept over long periods, gradually improves your ability to focus on reality. If you don't have the cast of mind, you're destined for failure even if you have a high I.Q.

If the technology hadn't changed, they [newspapers] would still be great businesses. Network TV [in its heyday], anyone could run and do well. If Tom Murphy as running it, you'd do very well, but even your idiot nephew could do well. Fortunately, carbide cutting tools [such as those made by Iscar] don't have these types of substitutes.

We have the same problem as everyone else: It's very hard to predict the future.

Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs.

How do you compete against a true fanatic? You can only try to build the best possible moat and continuously attempt to widen it.

Just as a man working with his tools should know its limitations, a man working with his cognitive apparatus must know its limitations.

It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.