Warren Buffett Quotes

Buy a business, don't rent stocks.

I buy expensive suits - they just look cheap on me.

I certainly have no desire to sell a good controlled business run by people I like and admire, merely to obtain a fancy price. However, specific conditions may cause the sale of one operating unit at some point.

It is to our advantage to have securities do nothing price-wise for months, or perhaps years, while we are buying them.

The best investment you can make is in yourself.

In the search [of a deal], we adopt the same attitude one might find appropriate in looking for a spouse: It pays to be active, interested, and open-minded, but it does not pay to be in a hurry.

When the brothel burns down, even the pretty girls have to run out.

What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.

Focus on your customers and lead your people as though their lives depend on your success.

Whatever you like to do, make it a hobby and whatever the world likes to do, make it a business.

... it's important to have the right monetary policy. It's important for, to have the right fiscal policy. But it's nowhere near as important as just the normal regenerative capacity of American capitalism.

I mean, you know, you're not going to change the human animal. And the human animal really doesn't get a lot smarter.

If I got any good ideas out of that or I think they're good ideas, I'll be glad to contribute them but the system will probably overdo some other things.

I measure success by how many people love me. And the best way to be loved is to be lo veable.

The purpose of life is to be loved by as many people as possible among those you want to have love you

Stop trying to predict the direction of the stock market, the economy or elections.

I've never been very fully employed either.

I would say that an RFC-like thing might make sense. I probably would do it myself. But I don't think trying to combine that with what's going through now, I think what is needed now is liquidity.

Investing is laying out money now to get more money back in the future.

Investing in a market where people believe in efficiency is like playing bridge with someone who has been told it doesn't do any good to look at the cards.

And people really behaved in a fraudulent way or something, we'll go back and find the culprits later on. But that really isn't the problem we have. I mean that's where it came from, though. We leveraged up and if you have a 20 percent fall in value of a $20 trillion asset, that's $4 trillion. And when $4 trillion lands - losses land in the wrong part of this economy, it can gum up the whole place.

Take the job you would take if you were independently wealthy. You're going to do well at it.

Cash, though, is to a business as oxygen is to an individual: never thought about when it is present, the only thing in mind when it is absent... When bills come due, only cash is legal tender. Don't leave home without it.

As far as you are concerned, the stock market does not exist. Ignore it.

It's never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but its not always a smooth ride.

You should look at stocks as small pieces of business.

In that, we agreed with Andrew Carnegie, who said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society. In my case, the ability to allocate capital would have had little utility unless I lived in a rich, populous country in which enormous quantities of marketable securities were traded and were sometimes ridiculously mispriced. And fortunately for me, that describes the U.S. in the second half of the last century.

Problems in a company are like cockroaches in the kitchen. You will never find just one

In the world of business, the people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love.

I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn't that a little like saving up sex for your old age?

Learning how to live is much more important than learning how to make a living.

We really can say no in 10 seconds or so to 90%+ of all the things that come along simply because we have these filters.

I think the FDIC was one of the great inventions of the American.

It's very important that the determination of the US Congress to do what is is needed be made evident this week and by the actions of most of the members. I mean, you're not going to get total assent.

The woman that comes in, takes the wastebasket away, she's paying 15.3 or whatever it is on payroll tax alone. I mean it is - I never had it so good.

I think it will get moving faster. I mean once you get it off the - once credit flows - now the recession is going to get worse.

A lot of people disagree with me on this, I believe in mark to market.

I have pledged - to you, the rating agencies and myself - to always run Berkshire with more than ample cash. We never want to count on the kindness of strangers in order to meet tomorrow's obligations. When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night's sleep for the chance of extra profits.

Games are won by players who focus on the playing field -- not by those whose eyes are glued to the scoreboard.

John Maynard Keynes essentially said, don't try and figure out what the market is doing. Figure out a business you understand, and concentrate.

Our favorite holding period is forever.

Every company that has an economist working for him has one employee too many.

The (stock) market is there only as a reference point to see if anybody is offering to do anything foolish. When we invest in stocks, we invest in businesses.

My idea of a group decision is to look in the mirror.

Never be afraid to ask for too much when selling or offer too little when buying.

We've got all the ingredients for a sensational future.

The most common cause of low prices is pessimism - sometimes pervasive, sometimes specific to a company or industry. We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism but because we like the prices it produces.

I think people - what people want to do is make [economy] get worse.