I think gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but civilized people don't buy gold, they invest in productive businesses.

Sears had layers and layers of people it didn't need. It was very bureaucratic. It was slow to think. And there was an established way of thinking. If you poked your head up with a new thought, the system kind of turned against you. It was everything in the way of a dysfunctional big bureaucracy that you would expect.

Almost all good businesses engage in 'pain today, gain tomorrow' activities.

It's not a competency if you don't know the edge of it.

I'm proud to be associated with the value system at Berkshire Hathaway; I think you'll make more money in the end with good ethics than bad.

It's a finite and very competitive world. All large aggregations of capital eventually find it hell on earth to grow and thus find a lower rate of return.

Intense interest in any subject is indispensable if you're really going to excel in it.