If you took our top fifteen decisions out, we'd have a pretty average record. It wasn't hyperactivity, but a hell of a lot of patience. You stuck to your principles and when opportunities came along, you pounced on them with vigor.

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.

Most people early achieve and later intensify a tendency to process new and disconfirming information so that any original conclusion remains intact. They become people of whom Philip Wylie observed: "You couldn't 't squeeze a dime between what they already know and what they will never learn."

Most people will see declining returns [due to inflation]. One of the great defenses if you're worried about inflation is not to have a lot of silly needs in your life - you don't need a lot of material goods.

At most corporations if you make an acquisition and it turns out to be a disaster, all the paperwork and presentations that caused the dumb acquisition to be made are quickly forgotten. You've got denial, you've got everything in the world. You've got Pavlovian association tendency. Nobody even wants to even be associated with the damned thing or even mention it. At Johnson & Johnson, they make everybody revisit their old acquisitions and wade through the presentations. That is a very smart thing to do. And by the way, I do the same thing routinely.

We have to have a special insight, or we'll put it in the 'too tough' basket. All of you have to look for a special area of competency and focus on that.

We don't like trading agony for money