Investors should remember that their scorecard is not computed using Olympic-diving methods: Degree-of-difficulty doesn't count. If you are right about a business whose value is largely dependent on a single key factor that is both easy to understand and enduring, the payoff is the same as if you had correctly analyzed an investment alternative characterized by many constantly shifting and complex variables.
Warren BuffettIn the great majority of cases we simply do not know enough about the industry or company to come to sensible judgments-in that situation we pass.
Warren BuffettYou don't need to have extraordinary effort to achieve extraordinary results. You just need to do the ordinary, everyday things exceptionally well.
Warren BuffettMaking money isn't the backbone of our guiding purpose; it is the by-product of our guiding purpose.
Warren BuffettResolution Trust Company was set up to liquidate a bunch of assets that the government had inherited because the savings and loans went broke.
Warren BuffettDerivatives are like sex. It's not who we're sleeping with, it's who they're sleeping with that's the problem.
Warren BuffettBen's Mr. Market allegory may seem out-of-date in today's investment world, in which most professionals and academicians talk of efficient markets, dynamic hedging and betas. Their interest in such matters is understandable, since techniques shrouded in mystery clearly have value to the purveyor of investment advice. After all, what witch doctor has ever achieved fame and fortune by simply advising 'Take two aspirins'?
Warren Buffett