Investors... can't pick stocks that are better than average. Stocks are a good thing to own over time. There's only two things you can do wrong: You can buy the wrong ones, and you can buy or sell them at the wrong time. And the truth is you never need to sell them.

After 25 years of buying and supervising a great variety of businesses, Charlie [Munger] and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them. To the extent we have been successful, it is because we have concentrated on identifying one-foot hurdles that we could step over rather than because we acquired any ability to clear seven-footers.

The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs.

The time to buy stocks is consistently over time. You should never buy your investments with the idea, 'I have to get a certain return.' You should look at the best return possible and learn to live with that. But you should not try to make your investments earn what you feel you need. It doesn't work that way. The stock doesn't know you own it.

There is no perfect mathematical formula for pricing a business.

The major asset in this category is gold, currently a huge favorite of investors who fear almost all other assets, especially paper money (of whose value, as noted, they are right to be fearful). Gold, however, has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative. True, gold has some industrial and decorative utility, but the demand for these purposes is both limited and incapable of soaking up new production. Meanwhile, if you own one ounce of gold for an eternity, you will still own one ounce at its end.

Knowing what to leave out is just as important as knowing what to focus on.