Suppose you were a real estate investor with a 1/3 interest in the best apartment complex in town, the best mall, and the best office building. Would you feel like a poor, undiversified investor? No! But as soon as you get into stocks, people feel this way. Partly, people need to justify their fees.
Charlie MungerWrigley is a great business, but that doesn't solve the problem. Buying great businesses at advantageous prices is very tough.
Charlie MungerYou have to realize the truth of biologist Julian Huxley's idea that 'Life is just one damn relatedness after another' "So you must have the models, and you must see the relatedness and the effects from the relatedness.
Charlie MungerHow do you compete against a true fanatic? You can only try to build the best possible moat and continuously attempt to widen it.
Charlie MungerWe have a higher percentage of the intelligentsia engaged in buying and selling pieces of paper and promoting trading activity than in any past era. A lot of what I see now reminds me of Sodomand Gomorrah. You get activity feeding on itself, envy and imitation. It has happened in the past that there came bad consequences.
Charlie MungerAnother thing I think should be avoided is extremely intense ideology because it cabbages up one's mind. You see it a lot with T.V. preachers (many have minds made of cabbage) but it can also happen with political ideology. When you're young it's easy to drift into loyalties and when you announce that you're a loyal member and you start shouting the orthodox ideology out, what you're doing is pounding it in, pounding it in, and you're gradually ruining your mind. So you want to be very, very careful of this ideology. It's a big danger.
Charlie Munger