Writing a check separates a commitment from a conversation.

Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can't buy what is popular and do well.

You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.

I think I could make you fifty percent a year on one million dollars. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.

None of this means, however, that a business or stock is an intelligent purchase simply because it is unpopular; a contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling. Unfortunately, Bertrand Russell's observation about life in general applies with unusual force in the financial world: "Most men would rather die than think. Many do."

When Berkshire buys common stock, we approach the transaction as if we were buying into a private business.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ.