Everybody engaged in complex work needs colleagues. Just the discipline of having to put your thoughts in order with somebody else is a very useful thing.”

The ethos of not fooling yourself is one of the best you could possibly have. It's powerful because it's so rare.

In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time - none ... ZERO.

Derivative trading with mark-to-market accounting degenerates into mark-to-model. Two firms make a big derivative trade and the accountants on both sides show a large profit from the same trade.

If you rise in life, you have to behave in a certain way. You can go to a strip club if you're a beer-swilling sand shoveler, but if you're the Bishop of Boston, you shouldn't go.

We don't have an isolated group [of senior managers] surrounded by servants. Berkshire's headquarters is a tiny little suite. We just came back from Berkshire's board meeting; it had moved up to the board room of the Kiewit company and [it was so large and luxurious that] I felt uncomfortable.

It's not given to human beings to have such talent that they can just know everything about everything all the time. But it is given to human beings who work hard at it - who look and sift the world for a mispriced bet - that they can occasionally find one. And the wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time they don't. It's just that simple.