If you understood a business perfectly and the future of the business, you need very little in the way of a margin of safety.

The best investment you can make is in yourself.

You should be unconcerned about short-term price action when you own the securities directly, just as you were unconcerned when you owned them indirectly through BPL. I think about them as businesses, not "stocks", and if the business does all right over the long term, so will the stock.

It's got to be the best intellectual exercise out there. You're seeing through new situations every ten minutes. In the stock market you don't base your decisions on what the market is doing, but on what you think is rational. Bridge is about weighing gain/loss ratios. You're doing calculations all the time.

The (stock) market is there only as a reference point to see if anybody is offering to do anything foolish. When we invest in stocks, we invest in businesses.

I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It cost a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's a fantastic brand loyalty.

We don't have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest.