Warren Buffett Quotes

I would say it's more important who the treasury secretary is than who the vice president is. If you want to have a debate here, I'd like a debate between potential treasury secretaries than the vice presidential debate.

We will prosper or suffer in controlled investments in relation to the operating performances of our businesses - we will not attempt to profit by playing various games in the securities markets.

Investing is simple, but not easy.

If you want to shoot rare, fast-moving elephants, you should always carry a loaded gun.

Take Wrigley's Chewing Gum. I don't think the Internet is going to change how people chew gum.

If you are a professional and have confidence, then I would advocate lots of concentration.

My favorite time frame for holding a stock is forever.

But 300 million Americans, their lending institutions, their government, their media, all believed that house prices were going to go up consistently. And that got billed into a $20 trillion residential home market. Lending was done based on it, and everybody did a lot of foolish things.

Buy companies with strong histories of profitability and with a dominant business franchise.

I have this complicated procedure I go through every morning, which is to look in the mirror and decide what I'm going to do. And I feel at that point, everybody's had their say.

The best education you can get is investing in yourself, and that doesn't mean college or university.

It irritates the hell out of me but you can't buy love.

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.

If this is a war, my side has the nuclear bomb. We have K Street. We have Wall Street. Debbie doesn't have anybody. I want a government that is responsive to the people who got the short straw in life.

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.

A CEO's behavior has a huge impact on managers down the line.

The managers at fault periodically report on the lesson they have learned from the latest disappointment. They then usually seek out future lessons.

I don't want to give a lecture to this body that's out there. You know, I mean, having had the heart attack, I want to get it back functioning. And as a practical matter, I mean if you were Bear Stearns, and you were a shareholder, you know, you lost 90 to 95 percent of your money. A good many lost their jobs. They lost very cushy lives, many of them.

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.

I've often felt there might be more to be gained by studying business failures than business successes.

If you are not willing to own a stock for 10 years, do not even think about owning it for 10 minutes.

I am not in the business of predicting general stock market of business fluctuations. If you think I can do this, or think it is essential to an investment program, you should not be in the partnership.

You don't ever ask a barber whether you need a haircut.

We have a country where I don't know whether it's a million households a year or more, but good form.

A bull market is like sex. It feels best just before it ends.

I think you'll have plenty of scrutiny as how the money's invested. I mean, just like the RFC. When the RFC operated, people knew which institutions they were buying preferred stock in. And it worked very well.

We look for things I can understand. A lot of businesses I don't understand.

A lot of great fortunes in the world have been made by owning a single wonderful business. If you understand the business, you don't need to own very many of them.

One observer commenting on security analysts over forty stated: "They know too many things that are no longer true." As long as I am "on stage", publishing a regular record and assuming responsibility for management of what amounts to virtually 100% of the net worth of many partners, I will never be able to put sustained effort into any non-BPL activity. If I am going to participate publicly. I can't help being competitive. I know I don't want to be totally occupied with out-pacing an investment rabbit all my life. The only way to slow down is to stop.

Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing so wide diversification is only required when investors are ignorant. You only have to do a very few things in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.

If you look at the Forbes 400, they are paying a lower rate, accounting payroll taxes, than their secretary or - whomever around their office.

There is no substitute for a local newspaper that is doing its job.

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

I’ve never believed in risking what my family and friends have and need in order to pursue what they don’t have and don’t need.

When the president of the United States goes out at, you know, 8:00 o'clock in the morning and then his own party votes gets him 2 to 1 in the house, you know that somehow a message isn't getting out. It takes real leadership.

I know what I want to do and it makes sense to get going.

One’s objective should be to get it right, get it quick, get it out and get it over. Your problem won’t improve with age.

I'll bring my tax returns; you bring yours. I'll meet you anytime anywhere.

If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.

A single year's performance is of minor importance and, good or bad, should never be taken seriously.

It's nice to have a lot of money, but you know, you don't want to keep it around forever. I prefer buying things. Otherwise, it's a little like saving sex for your old age.

You have no ability, if you're a financial institution and you're threatened with criminal prosecution, you have no ability to negotiate.

I do not like debt and do not like to invest in companies that have too much debt, particularly long-term debt. With long-term debt, increases in interest rates can drastically affect company profits and make future cash flows less predictable.

Writing checks to the IRS that include strings of zeros does not bother me ... Overall, we feel extraordinarily lucky to have been dealt a hand in life that enables us to write large checks to the government rather than one requiring the government to regularly write checks to us-say, because we are disabled or unemployed.

[W]e think the very term 'value investing' is redundant. What is 'investing' if it is not the act of seeking value at least sufficient to justify the amount paid? Consciously paying more for a stock than its calculated value -- in the hope that it can soon be sold for a still-higher price -- should be labeled speculation (which is neither illegal, immoral nor -- in our view -- financially fattening).

If AIG had tried to unwind their derivatives books. I don't know. It would have hit every institution in the world.

We are in effect making a - to some extent, making a choice between future inflation and getting our - getting off the floor. And we're likely - we're likely to have more inflation in the future as a consequence of the things we do to fight the present situation.

I mean there is no capital requirements to it or anything of the sort. And basically, I said there were possibly financial weapons of mass destruction, and they had them. They destroyed AIG. They certainly contributed to the destruction of Bear Sterns and Lehman. Although Lehman had other problems, too.