Trying to prioritize among things we're unlikely to do is pretty fruitless.

The cash register did more for human morality than the Congregational Church. It was a really powerful phenomenon to make an economic system work better, just as, in reverse, a system that can be easily defrauded ruins a civilization. A system that's very hard to defraud, like a cash register, helped the economic performance of a civilization by reducing vice, but very few people within economics talk about it in those terms.

I think track records are very important. If you start early trying to have a perfect one in some simple thing like honesty, you're well on your way to success in this world.

This is a good life lesson: getting the right people into your system is the most important thing you can do.

It's a rare business that doesn't have a way worse future than it has a past.

[GEICO] got to thinking that, because they were making a lot of money, they knew everything. And they suffered huge losses. All they had to do was to cut out all the folly and go back to the perfectly wonderful business that was lying there.

Warren spends 70 hours a week thinking about investing .