I think liberal art faculties at major universities have views that are not very sound, at least on public policy issues - they may know a lot of French however.

I feel that by getting rich in the way I did, I think my own example has hurt my own country.

Well the open-outcry auction is just made to turn the brain into mush: you've got social proof, the other guy is bidding, you get reciprocation tendency, you get deprival super-reaction syndrome, the thing is going away... I mean it just absolutely is designed to manipulate people into idiotic behavior.

The old culture had come out of poverty, out of English customs.

Berkshire's past record has been almost ridiculous. If Berkshirehad used even half the leverage of, say, Rupert Murdoch, it would be five times its current size.

In the 1930s, there was a stretch where you could borrow more against the real estate than you could sell it for. I think that's what's going on in today's private-equity world.

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