We set no volume goals in our insurance business generally-and certainly not in reinsurance-as virtually any volume can be achieved if profitability standards are ignored.

The most important investment you can make is in yourself. Very few people get anything like their potential horsepower translated into the actual horsepower of their output in life. Potential exceeds realization for many people...The best asset is your own self. You can become to an enormous degree the person you want to be.

Gold has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative.

In other words, the percentage change in book value in any given year is likely to be reasonably close to that year's change in intrinsic value.

I wouldn't want to manufacture cigarettes. But if I owned - we do own Costco. Do they sell them? Yes. So I don't have a problem owning stock in that. But I just wouldn't want to - I wouldn't want to do it myself. I basically think, if anything is sufficiently antisocial, society should do something about it. But that's a separate question. But - and I don't think there's any company that I have seen that's 100 percent pure.

People who watch their weight, golf scores, and fuel bills seem to shun quantitative evaluation of their investment management skills although it involves the most important client in the world-themselves.

They [Goverment] take from the woman who comes in and takes the wastebaskets out.