At Berkshire Hathaway we do not like to compete against Chinese manufacturers.

If you, like me, lived through 1973-74 or even the early 1990s... There was a waiting list to get OUT of the country club - that's when you know things are tough. If you live long enough, you'll see it.

I'm used to people with very high IQs knowing how to recognize reality, but there's a huge human tendency where it may be instructive to think that whatever you're doing to succeed is all right.

Capitalism is a pretty brutal place.

Rationality is not just something you do so that you can make more money, it is a binding principle. Rationality is a really good idea. You must avoid the nonsense that is conventional in one's own time. It requires developing systems of thought that improve your batting average over time.

In the LBO field there is a buried "covariance" with marketable equities, toward disaster in generally bad business conditions, and competition is now extremely intense.

It's a good habit to trumpet your failures and be quiet about your successes.