...in terms of business mistakes that I've seen over a long lifetime, I would say that trying to minimize taxes too much is one of the great standard causes of really dumb mistakes. I see terrible mistakes from people being overly motivated by tax considerations. Warren and I personally don't drill oil wells. We pay our taxes. And we've done pretty well, so far. Anytime somebody offers you a tax shelter from here on in life, my advice would be don't buy it.

I think there's something to be said for developing the disposition to own stocks without fretting.

Determine value apart from price; progress apart from activity; wealth apart from size.

Anyone with an engineering frame of mind will look at [accounting standards] and want to throw up.

It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn't get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.

Litigation is notoriously time-consuming, inefficient, costly and unpredictable.

We believe there should be a huge area between everything you should do and everything you can do without getting into legal trouble. I don't think you should come anywhere near that line. We don't deserve much credit for this. It helps us make more money. I'd like to believe that we'd behave well even if it didn't work. But more often, we've made extra money from doing the right thing. Ben Franklin said I'm not moral because of it's the right thing to do - but because it's the best policy.