Warren Buffett Quotes

I've learned mainly by reading myself. So I don't think I have any original ideas. Certainly, I talk about reading Graham. I've read Phil Fisher. So I've gotten a lot of my ideas from reading. You can learn a lot from other people. In fact, I think if you learn basically from other people, you don't have to get too many new ideas on your own. You can just apply the best of what you see.

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

If we start deciding, based on guesses or emotions, whether we will or won't participate in a business where we should have some long run edge, we're in trouble.

An investor will succeed by coupling good business judgment with an ability to insulate his thoughts and behavior from the super-contagious emotions that swirl about the marketplace.

We still find very few [stocks] that even mildly interest us. That dismal fact is testimony to the insanity of valuations reached during The Great Bubble. Unfortunately, the hangover may prove to be proportional to the binge.

It's better to build than to buy if you can find the right people.

The dumbest reason in the world to buy a stock is because it's going up.

I don't have my diploma from the University of Nebraska hanging on my office wall, and I don't have my diploma from Columbia up there either-but I do have my Dale Carnegie graduation certificate proudly displayed.

I bought my first stock in 1942, in the summer of '42. I was 11 years old. And so 75 years have gone by. And I have never known what the market's going to do the next day. And that's not my game. My game is to decide whether I'm in the right economy, which America's definitely been ever since that time. The Dow has gone from 100 to 21,000 during that time. And no matter what the headlines say, or terrible things are happening - we were losing the war in the Pacific when I first bought stocks.

We don't get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we'll wait, we'll wait indefinitely.

I think the oversight is great, and I think that oversight ought to be devoted almost entirely to the question is this being done at market you know. In other words, you want to make sure that the government isn't investing foolishly. But you don't want to care about which congressional districts it goes to or whether banks get favored over.

If you want a government that's going to do the things we ask our government to do, you've got to get it from somebody.

It's not debt per say that overwhelms an individual corporation or country. Rather it is a continuous increase in debt in relation to income that causes trouble.

I mean, we'll be pounding on the guy's chest, you know, on the floor, and you know, he's not going to just jump up all of a sudden. So it makes it tough. I mean, it's tough to be in the legislature, you know, and vote for something and then people say, well, you voted all this money and you know, it's all getting spent. It isn't getting spent. It's getting invested. But it's all getting spent. Nothing's happening.

Banking is very good business if you don't do anything dumb.

Never test the depth of river with both the feet.

We want to use cash. The reason we haven't used our cash two years ago, we just didn't find things that were that attractive. But when people talk about cash being king, it's not king if it just sits there and never does anything. There are times when cash buys more than other times, and this is one of the other times when it buys a fair amount more, so we use it.

I don't think it would be crazy to have a model or an entity model on the Reconstruction Finance Corp.

In some corner of the world they are probably still holding regular meetings of the Flat Earth Society. We derive no comfort because important people, vocal people, or great numbers of people agree with us. Nor do we derive comfort if they don't.

The gross profits in many workouts appear quite small. It's a little like looking for parking meters with some time left on them. However, the predictability coupled with a short holding period produces quite decent average annual rates of return after allowance for the occasional substantial loss.

The secret to happiness is having low expectations.

I've seen more people fail because of liquor and leverage -- leverage being borrowed money. You really don't need leverage in this world much. If you're smart, you're going to make a lot of money without borrowing.

The extraordinary business does not require good management.

Goldman Sachs saying they might be interested in such an investment. I'm familiar with the company. I've known the management, the current management, Jack Welch before Jeff Immelt. I've known him for decades.

Investment must be rational; if you can't understand it, don't do it.

The most important investment you can make is in yourself... nobody can tax it or take it away from you.

I am not worried about the country. I'm just worried about anything that gums up the potential of the country. And right now, it's pretty gummed up.

... the best way to own common stocks is through an index fund.

The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs.

The reaction of weak management to weak operations is often weak accounting.

The great personal fortunes in the country weren't built on a portfolio of fifty companies. They were built by someone who identified one wonderful business. With each investment you make, you should have the courage and the conviction to place at least 10% of your net worth in that stock.

The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball.

I have no idea on timing. It’s easier to tell what will happen than when it will happen. I would say that what is going on in terms of trade policy is going to have very important consequences.

It is obvious that the performance of a stock last year or last month is no reason, per se, to either own it or to not own it now. It is obvious that an inability to "get even" in a security that has declined is of no importance. It is obvious that the inner warm glow that results from having held a winner last year is of no importance in making a decision as to whether it belongs in an optimum portfolio this year.

Stocks of companies selling commodity-like products should come with a warning label: "Competition may prove hazardous to human wealth".

The only way to be loved is to be loveable, which really irritates me.

You can lose leverage, and it's the only way a smart guy can go broke.

The most common cause of low prices is pessimism - some times pervasive, some times 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. It's optimism that is the enemy of the rational buyer.

Most business mistakes are irreversible setbacks, but you get another chance. There are two things in life that you don't get another chance at - marrying the wrong person and what you do with your children.

I don't know that I could draw one that's perfect. But I'd rather by approximately right than precisely wrong, and it would be precisely wrong to turn it down.

Bad terminology is the enemy of good thinking.

I learned to go into business only with people whom I like, trust, and admire.

In our view, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction carrying dangers that, while latent, are potentially lethal.

Basically, the single-most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power.

The best asset is your own self. You can become to an enormous degree the person you want to be

I think I could make you fifty percent a year on one million dollars. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.

Market price, while used exclusively to value our investments in minority positions, is not a relevant factor when applied to our controlling interests.

With housing it's something even more dramatic than that, because most people aspire to own their own home.If you really think that houses prices are going to go up next year and the year after, you feel if I don't buy it this year, I'm going to have to buy it next year.That's not true of an Internet stock. But it's true of a home.