The best investment you can make, is an investment in yourself... The more you learn, the more you'll earn.
Warren BuffettInvesting is the greatest business in the world because you never have to swing. You stand at the plate; the pitcher throws you General Motors at 47! U.S. Steel at 39! And nobody calls a strike on you. There's no penalty except opportunity. All day you wait for the pitch you like; then, when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it.
Warren BuffettThe 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.
Warren BuffettGenerally speaking, investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. Anything that improves your own talents; nobody can tax it or take it away from you. They can run up huge deficits and the dollar can become worth far less. You can have all kinds of things happen. But if you’ve got talent yourself, and you’ve maximized your talent, you’ve got a tremendous asset that can return ten-fold.
Warren BuffettYou can't stand to see your neighbor getting rich. You know you're smarter than he is and he's doing these things and he's getting rich.
Warren BuffettTrust is like the air we breathe--when it's present, nobody really notices; when it's absent, everybody notices.
Warren BuffettOur goal is to find an outstanding business at a sensible price, not a mediocre business at a bargain price.
Warren BuffettThe range of derivatives contracts is limited only by the imagination of man (or sometimes, so it seems, madmen). Say you want to write a contract speculating on the number of twins to be born in Nebraska in 2020. No problem-at a price, you will easily find an obliging counterparty.
Warren BuffettYou know ... you keep doing the same things and you keep getting the same result over and over again.
Warren BuffettIf past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.
Warren BuffettThere are a few investment managers, of course, who are very good - though in the short run, it's difficult to determine whether a great record is due to luck or talent. Most advisors, however, are far better at generating high fees than they are at generating high returns. In truth, their core competence is salesmanship. Rather than listen to their siren songs, investors - large and small - should instead read Jack Bogle's The Little Book of Common Sense Investing.
Warren BuffettIf some institution wants to sell you a billion dollars worth of mortgages, they might have to sell 100 million in the market, and then you'll buy the other 900 million on the same terms. Now, the very fact that this has been authorized or will be authorized, I hope, will firm up the market to some degree. And that's fine. But you don't want to have artificial prices being paid.
Warren BuffettThe optimum portfolio depends on the various expectations of choices available and the degree of variance in performance which is tolerable. The greater the number of selections, the less will be the average year-to-year variation in actual versus expected results. Also, the lower will be the expected results, assuming different choices have different expectations of performance.
Warren BuffettI mean you know at midnight everything is going to turn to pumpkins and mice; right? But if the evening goes along, I mean, you know, the guys look better all the time, the music sounds better, it's more and more fun, you think why the hell should I leave at quarter of 12. I'll leave at two minutes to 12. But the trouble is, there are no clocks on the wall. And everybody thinks they're going to leave at two minutes to 12.
Warren BuffettIf you're extremely rich, and you have got children, my theory was, you give them enough so they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing.
Warren BuffettI’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions.
Warren BuffettWe have embraced the 21st century by entering such cutting-edge industries as brick, carpet, insulation and paint. Try to control your excitement.
Warren BuffettI mean [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt didn't - you know, when he came in, he didn't print any money.
Warren BuffettIt's good to learn from your mistakes. It's better to learn from other people's mistakes.
Warren BuffettThe key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.
Warren BuffettIf the reason for doing something is that everyone else is doing it, it's not a good enough reason.
Warren BuffettIf you expect to be a net saver during the next 5 years, should you hope for a higher or lower stock market during that period? Many investors get this one wrong. Even though they are going to be net buyers of stocks for many years to come, they are elated when stock prices rise and depressed when they fall. This reaction makes no sense. Only those who will be sellers of equities in the near future should be happy at seeing stocks rise. Prospective purchasers should much prefer sinking prices.
Warren BuffettJust imagine living on 21,000 a year. I mean you have 20 percent of the population doing that. So you don't have to worry about guys like me.
Warren BuffettAn investor should ordinarily hold a small piece of an outstanding business with the same tenacity that an owner would exhibit if he owned all of that business.
Warren BuffettYeah, we don't consider many stupid things. I mean, we get rid of 'em fast...Just getting rid of the nonsense -- just figuring out that if people call you and say, 'I've got this great, wonderful idea', you don't spend 10 minutes once you know in the first sentence that it isn't a great, wonderful idea...Don't be polite and go through the whole process.
Warren BuffettBuy a cross section of American industry, and if a cross section of American industry doesn't work, certainly trying to pick the little beauties here and there isn't going to work either.
Warren BuffettSo smile when you read a headline that says "Investors lose as market falls." Edit it in your mind to "Disinvestors lose as market falls-but investors gain." Though writers often forget this truism, there is a buyer for every seller and what hurts one necessarily helps the other. (As they say in golf matches: "Every putt makes someone happy.")
Warren BuffettIf you were at Lehman, the same thing happened. If you were at AIG, the shareholders are getting creamed on these things. And those shareholders are not just a bunch of big shots in Wall Street. Those are pension funds, and those are investors all over the country. I wouldn't worry too much about that. Justice won't be perfect on it.
Warren BuffettI want to be able to explain my mistakes. This means I do only the things I completely understand.
Warren BuffettLook at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.
Warren BuffettOnly when you combine sound intellect with emotional discipline do you get rational behavior.
Warren BuffettIn a bull market, one must avoid the error of the preening duck that quacks boastfully after a torrential rainstorm, thinking that its paddling skills have caused it to rise in the world. A right-thinking duck would instead compare its position after the downpour to that of the other ducks on the pond.
Warren BuffettYou can't help some increase from this point. I don't want any viewer to go away think a magic wand exists in Congress. So they're going to see some more bad news. But if we do this, we're doing the right thing.
Warren BuffettThe best way in my view is to just buy a low-cost index fund and keep buying it regularly over time, because you'll be buying into a wonderful industry, which in effect is all of American industry... People ought to sit back and relax and keep accumulating over time.
Warren BuffettYou should be unconcerned about short-term price action when you own the securities directly, just as you were unconcerned when you owned them indirectly through BPL. I think about them as businesses, not "stocks", and if the business does all right over the long term, so will the stock.
Warren BuffettA home is one of the most important assets that most people will ever buy. Homes are also where memories are made and you want to work with someone you can trust.
Warren BuffettHouse prices just soared beyond - beyond reason in many places and they got financed in silly ways, and people lied about loans, all kinds of accesses entered into it. But that is what - that is the single biggest cause of why we're here.
Warren Buffett