Warren Buffett Quotes

All but a few of the organizations do not specifically promise to deliver superior investment performance although it is perhaps not unreasonable for the public to draw such an inference from their advertised emphasis on professional management.

We have provided capital here with a couple of institutions recently. The Federal government did that in the '30s for the RFC and I think there could well be a proper role for government in that.

Sound investing can make you very wealthy if you're not in too big a hurry

America should stand for more than just wealth.

Money to some extent sometimes let you be in more interesting environments. But it can't change how many people love you or how healthy you are.

In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses-How to Value a Business, and How to Think about Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business who's earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now.

I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.

Somebody's buying these treasury bills at 1/20th of one percent. Consuming about $2 billion a day of goods and services beyond what we're producing. In other words, the rest of the world sends about $2 billion a day net of something.We got to send them something in return, don't we. So we send them little pieces of paper.

Is management rational?

I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire's tax rate. For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That's the only reason to build them. They don't make sense without the tax credit.

Never depend on a single source of income.

That's the reality of what they're going to sell them to the Treasury for.

You’ve gotta keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ.

A diamond cannot be polished without friction, nor a person perfected without trials. Someone is enjoying shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

The best business returns are usually achieved by companies that are doing something quite similar today to what they were doing five or ten years ago.

There is seldom just one cockroach in the kitchen. You know, you turn on the light and, all of sudden, they all start scurrying around.

Focus alone is not enough; putting in the time to commit is also crucial to achieve success.

It's us fun being a horse when the tractor comes along, or the blacksmith when the car comes along.

If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.

He must never forget Charlie's plea: Tell me where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there.

Is management candid with the shareholders?

Do not put all your eggs in one basket.

The key to success is emotional stability.

I mean, they were getting the mortgage of some guy in Omaha, you know, securitized a couple of times. I mean he had all these - they had all these types from Wall Street, you know, and they had advanced degrees, and they look very alert, and they came with these - they came with these things that said gamma and alpha and sigma and all that. And all I can say is beware of geeks, you know, bearing formulas. They've heard that in Europe.

Derivatives are like sex. It's not who we're sleeping with, it's who they're sleeping with that's the problem.

What we learn from history is that people don't learn from history.

People should always know better.

Focus on return on equity, not earnings per share.

Wall Street makes its money on activity. You make your money on inactivity.

Good big decisions do not take time at all, if they do you are in trouble.

I don't measure my life by the money I've made. Other people might, but certainly don't.

It makes no difference to a widow with her savings in a 5 percent passbook account whether she pays 100 percent income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation or pays no income tax during years of 5 percent inflation. Either way, she is 'taxed' in a manner that leaves her no real income whatsoever. Any money she spends comes right out of capital. She would find outrageous a 100 percent income tax but doesn't seem to notice that 5 percent inflation is the economic equivalent.

Our investments continue to be few in number and simple in concept: The truly big investment idea can usually be explained in a short paragraph. We like a business with enduring competitive advantages that is run by able and owner-oriented people. When these attributes exist, and when we can make purchases at sensible prices, it is hard to go wrong (a challenge we periodically manage to overcome).

Never lie under any circumstances.

I knew a lot about what I did when I was 20. I had read a lot, and I aspired to learn everything I could about the subject.

Making money isn't the backbone of our guiding purpose; making money is the by-product of our guiding purpose. If you're doing something you love, you're more likely to put your all into it, and that generally equates to making money

Activity is the enemy of investment returns.

A stock doesn't know that you own it.

We try to buy businesses with good-to-superb underlying economics run by honest and able people and buy them at sensible prices. That's all I'm trying to do.

I think it's been, you know, kind of like a tragic play to this point. But at this point, I think it's clear, and will be clear to the majority of the Congress. I think it's clear to the American people that there is only one countervailing force to a world where financial institutions are trying to sell instruments every day and where credit has dried up, and that's the United States Treasury.

The fundamental basis of above-average performance in the long run is sustainable competitive advantage.

Do what you would do for free, having passion for what you do is the most important thing.

There are all kinds of businesses that Charlie and I don't understand, but that doesn't cause us to stay up at night. It just means we go on to the next one, and that's what the individual investor should do.

There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight.

Working with people who cause your stomach to churn seems much like marrying for money - probably a bad idea under any circumstances, but absolute madness if you are already rich.

You will be right, over the course of many transactions, if your hypotheses are correct, your facts are correct, and your reasoning is correct. True conservatism is only possible through knowledge and reason.

The idea that you try to time purchases based on what you think business is going to do in the next year or two, I think that's the greatest mistake that investors make because it's always uncertain. People say it's a time of uncertainty. It was uncertain on September 10th, 2001, people just didn't know it. It's uncertain every single day. So take uncertainty as part of being involved in investment at all. But uncertainty can be your friend. I mean, when people are scared, they pay less for things. We try to price. We don't try to time at all.