You could take all the gold that's ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 67 feet in each direction. For what that's worth at current gold prices, you could buy all -- not some -- all of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy 10 Exxon Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take? Which is going to produce more value?

You don't have to be a genius to invest well

The financial calculus that Charlie and I employ would never permit our trading a good night's sleep for a shot at a few extra percentage points of return. I've never believed in risking what my friends and family have and need in order to pursue what they don't have and don't need.

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.

People always should know better. People don't get - they don't get smarter about things that get as basic as greed.

Larger sums may be an advantage at some cases and a disadvantage at others.

We have usually made our best purchases when apprehensions about some macro event were at a peak. Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist.