Inspirational Warren Buffett Quotes & Sayings

Best selected inspirational Warren Buffett Quotes the famous entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker of his time. These quotes by Warren Buffett will motivate and inspire you and you will be much wiser in your business venture.

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

I don't really think that, as a society, we [americans] want to confer blessings on generation after generation who contribute nothing to society, simply because somebody in the far distant past happened to amass a great sum of wealth. ~Warren Buffett

Inflation could be a very - is a likely consequence out of what's going on now. ~Warren Buffett

Although we deal with probabilities and expectations, the actual results can deviate substantially from such expectations, particularly on a short-term basis. ~Warren Buffett

The value of market esoterica to the consumer of investment advice is a different story. In my opinion, investment success will not be produced by arcane formulae, computer programs or signals flashed by the price behavior of stocks and markets. Rather 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. ~Warren Buffett

If I were the treasury secretary or head of the Fed, you know, I would try to scare the hell the out of the private sector and say, you better save this because you're going down with the ship. ~Warren Buffett

The approach and strategies are very similar in that you gather all the information you can and then keep adding to that base of information as things develop. You do whatever the probabilities indicated based on the knowledge that you have at that time, but you are always willing to modify your behaviour or your approach as you get new information. In bridge, you behave in a way that gets the best from your partner. And in business, you behave in the way that gets the best from your managers and your employees. ~Warren Buffett

The dominant factors affecting control valuations are earning power (past and prospective) and asset values. ~Warren Buffett

There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning. ~Warren Buffett

Our approach is very much profiting from lack of change rather than from change. With Wrigley chewing gum, it's the lack of change that appeals to me. I don't think it is going to be hurt by the Internet. That's the kind of business I like. ~Warren Buffett

Our policy is to concentrate holdings. We try to avoid buying a little of this or that when we are only lukewarm about the business or its price. When we are convinced as to attractiveness, we believe in buying worthwhile amounts. ~Warren Buffett

The value of a business is the cash it's going to produce in the future. ~Warren Buffett

We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children. ~Warren Buffett

I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me. ~Warren Buffett

There are three kinds of people: . Innovators. . Imitators. . Idiots. ~Warren Buffett

Much success can be attributed to inactivity. Most investors cannot resist the temptation to constantly buy and sell. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I do not believe in inheriting your position in society based on which womb you come from... I think a rich person should leave his children enough so they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing. ~Warren Buffett

Money is not everything. Make sure you earn a lot before speaking such nonsense. ~Warren Buffett

Government can't deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole. It can, however, determine who pays for lunch. And last week the Senate handed the bill to the wrong party... the poor and middle class. ~Warren Buffett

Emotional makeup is more important than technical skill ~Warren Buffett

I view derivatives as time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them and the economic system. ~Warren Buffett

We have long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good. ~Warren Buffett

Generally 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 Buffett

The American economy is going to do fine. But it won't do fine every year and every week and every month. I mean, if you don't believe that, forget about buying stocks anyway... It's a positive-sum game, long term. And the only way an investor can get killed is by high fees or by trying to outsmart the market. ~Warren Buffett

I'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. In short, fate's distribution of long straws is wildly capricious. ~Warren Buffett

Cash never makes us happy, but it's better to have the money burning a hole in Berkshire's pocket than resting comfortably in someone else's. ~Warren Buffett

When you're associating with the people that you love, doing what you love, it doesn't get any better than that. ~Warren Buffett

Don't pass up something that's attractive today because you think you will find something way more attractive tomorrow. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows. ~Warren Buffett

I checked the actuarial tables, and the lowest death rate is among six-year-olds. So I decided to eat like a six-year-old. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

it's a good idea to review past mistakes before committing new ones. ~Warren Buffett

If you hit a hole in one every hole, you wouldn't play golf for very long. ~Warren Buffett

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 % 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. ~Warren Buffett

Can you know you can have institutions that put curbs on that in various ways, and actually what the banks, you know, they have various capital ratios and that sort of thing, but the banks got around them, I mean, they set up sieves and that sort of thing just to get more leverage. People love leverage when it's working. I mean, it's so easy to borrow money from a guy at X and put it out at X. ~Warren Buffett

Part of making good decisions in business is recognizing the poor decisions you've made and why they were poor. I've made lots of mistakes. I'm going to make more. It's the name of the game. You don't want to expect perfection in yourself. You want to strive to do your best. It's too demanding to expect perfection in yourself. ~Warren Buffett

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

In looking for people to hire, look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you. ~Warren Buffett

An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

You don't want million Americans putting their money under the mattress. ~Warren Buffett

I don't like what's going on with the executive compensation. ~Warren Buffett

Mr. Market is kind of a drunken psycho. Some days he gets very enthused, some days he gets very depressed. And when he get really enthused you sell to him, and if he gets depressed, you buy from him. There's no moral taint attached to that. ~Warren Buffett

The Fed is the greatest hedge fund in history. ~Warren Buffett

We don't have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest. ~Warren Buffett

There is one thing of which I can assure you. If good performance of the fund is even a minor objective, any portfolio encompassing one hundred stocks (whether the manager is handling one thousand dollars or one billion dollars) is not being operated logically. The addition of the one hundredth stock simply can't reduce the potential variance in portfolio performance sufficiently to compensate for the negative effect its inclusion has on the overall portfolio expectation. ~Warren Buffett

When they get their ego involved, people do things they shouldn't do. ~Warren Buffett

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

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

I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place where society values my talent, and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the finanical system to let me do what I love doing-and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that. ~Warren Buffett

Having first rate people on the team is more important than designing hierarchies and clarifying who reports to whom. ~Warren Buffett

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective. ~Warren Buffett

Investors making purchases in an overheated market need to recognize that it may often take an extended period for the value of even an outstanding company to catch up with the price they paid. ~Warren Buffett

The greatest Enemies of the Equity investor are Expenses and Emotions. ~Warren Buffett

In one way, I'm sympathetic to the institutional reluctance to face the music. I'd give a lot to mark my weight to 'model' rather than to 'market.' ~Warren Buffett

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

The banking business is no favorite of ours. When assets are twenty times equity - a common ratio in this industry - mistakes that involve only a small portion of assets can destroy a major portion of equity. And mistakes have been the rule rather than the exception at many major banks. ~Warren Buffett

Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, 'Too much of a good thing can be wonderful'. ~Warren Buffett

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

The best thing I did was choose the right heroes. ~Warren Buffett

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

It's got to be the best intellectual exercise out there. You're seeing through new situations every ten minutes. In the stock market you don't base your decisions on what the market is doing, but on what you think is rational. Bridge is about weighing gain/loss ratios. You're doing calculations all the time. ~Warren Buffett

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

I never invest in anything that I don't understand. ~Warren Buffett

Look for things in a person. Intelligence, Energy, & Integrity. If they don't have the last one, don't even bother with the first two. ~Warren Buffett

Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble ~Warren Buffett

Outstanding long-term results are produced primarily by avoiding dumb decisions, rather than by making brilliant ones. ~Warren Buffett

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

If you have a harem of women, you never get to know any of them very well. ~Warren Buffett

Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends. ~Warren Buffett

Tell me your heroes and I'll tell you how your life will end up ~Warren Buffett

I'm sitting with six and a half billion dollars we're going to use to close the Mars-Wrigley deal on October . I've got to hand over that six and a half billion on October . Now, I have to be very careful about who I leave it in between now and then, because they're expecting that he show up. ~Warren Buffett

If, when making a stock investment, you're not considering holding it at least ten years, don't waste more than ten minutes considering it. ~Warren Buffett

I have never been able to understand why the tax comes as such a body blow to many people since the rate on long-term capital gain is lower than on most likes of endeavor (tax policy indicated digging ditches is regarded as socially less desirable than shuffling stock certificates). ~Warren Buffett

You have to understand accounting and you have to understand the nuances of accounting. It's the language of business and it's an imperfect language, but unless you are willing to put in the effort to learn accounting - how to read and interpret financial statements - you really shouldn't select stocks yourself ~Warren Buffett

Buy 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 Buffett

What's going to happen - things we're doing are going to have some inflationary consequences. ~Warren Buffett

That's been lost. It's a huge problem. What you have is you have the major institutions of the world all wanting to deleverage. They want to take down their assets and liabilities. What seemed so easy to borrow against a year ago now looks like rat poison to them. So they're trying to deleverage. There is only one institution in the world that can leverage up in a way that's all a countervailing force to that, and that's the United States Treasury. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever. ~Warren Buffett

You don't need to have extraordinary effort to achieve extraordinary results. You just need to do the ordinary, everyday things exceptionally well. ~Warren Buffett

In earlier years, a lesser effort produced literally dozens of comparable opportunities. It is difficult to be objective about the causes for such diminution of one's own productivity. Three factors that seem apparent are: () a somewhat changed market environment; () our increased size; and () substantially more competition. ~Warren Buffett

Somebody's buying these treasury bills at /th of one percent. Consuming about $ billion a day of goods and services beyond what we're producing. In other words, the rest of the world sends about $ 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. ~Warren Buffett

I can't promise results, but I can promise a common destiny. ~Warren Buffett

I am a huge bull on this country. We will not have a double-dip recession at all. I see our businesses coming back almost across the board. ~Warren Buffett

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

In the th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from to ,. ~Warren Buffett

It's a nightmare to administer some of this sort of thing, but I want to tell the shareholders of Berkshire, to the percent we own marketable securities or things for which there are market, even if those markets - I want to tell them what it's all about. ~Warren Buffett

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

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. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

If you gave me $ billion and said take away the soft drink leadership of Coca-Cola in the world, I'd give it back to you and say it can't be done. ~Warren Buffett

We've used derivatives for many, many years. I don't think derivatives are evil, per se, I think they are dangerous. ...So we use lots of things daily that are dangerous, but we generally pay some attention to how they're used. We tell the cars how fast they can go. ~Warren Buffett

Cash combined with courage in a time of crisis is priceless. ~Warren Buffett

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

The ideal business is one that earns very high returns on capital and that keeps using lots of capital at those high returns. That becomes a compounding machine. ~Warren Buffett

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

I do know that when I am , I should be attempting to achieve different personal goals than those which had priority at age . ~Warren Buffett

We've got more productive capacity now than we ever have. ~Warren Buffett

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

The 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 Buffett

Occasionally, a man must rise above principles. ~Warren Buffett

In an inflationary world, a toll bridge (like company) would be a great thing to own because you've laid out the capital costs. You built it in old dollars and you don't have to keep replacing it. ~Warren Buffett

When people tell me they've learned from experience, I tell them the trick is to learn from other people's experience. ~Warren Buffett

Investing is simple, but not easy. ~Warren Buffett

Returns decrease as motion increases. ~Warren Buffett

Investing is not as tough as being a top-notch bridge player. All it takes is the ability to see things as they really are. ~Warren Buffett

The active investors will have their returns diminished by a far greater percentage than will their inactive brethren. That means that the passive group - the "know-nothings" - must win. ~Warren Buffett

If you expect to be a net saver during the next 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 Buffett

When billion of treasury bills are sold like, seven day treasury bills, at a yield of /th of one percent, that means the whole country is basically at the point virtually, or a lot of the country is at the point of putting the money under the mattress. ~Warren Buffett

Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future. ~Warren Buffett

I mean, in terms of alternatives, some people have suggested for example that why don't we - why isn't America doing what Berkshire Hathaway is doing? Why isn't that a better deal for America? ~Warren Buffett

With enough insider information and a million dollars, you can go broke in a year. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last years, and I hope the American public is catching on. ~Warren Buffett

I don't think you can have a better secretary of the Treasury than Hank Paulson. ~Warren Buffett

In economics, you always want to ask 'And then what?' ~Warren Buffett

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

If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end - people like myself - should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it. ~Warren Buffett

The rich invest in time, the poor invest in money. ~Warren Buffett

But, surprise - none of these blockbuster events made the slightest dent in Ben Graham's investment principles. Nor did they render unsound the negotiated purchases of fine businesses at sensible prices. Imagine the cost to us, then, if we had let a fear of unknowns cause us to defer or alter the deployment of capital. Indeed, we have usually made our best purchases when apprehensions about some macro event were at a peak. Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist. ~Warren Buffett

There are million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we've got a system that allows them to do it. ~Warren Buffett

An argument is made that there are just too many question marks about the near future; wouldn't it be better to wait until things clear up a bit? You know the prose: "Maintain buying reserves until current uncertainties are resolved," etc. Before reaching for that crutch, face up to two unpleasant facts: The future is never clear and you pay a very high price for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values. ~Warren Buffett

Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre. ~Warren Buffett

House 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

The extraordinary business does not require good management. ~Warren Buffett

Investment ideas, like women are often more exciting than punctual. ~Warren Buffett

I find that the standard of living does not go up in proportion with the cost of living. The trick in life is to do things that are fun all the time. ~Warren Buffett

Lethargy bordering on sloth remains the cornerstone of our investment style. The exception was Wells Fargo, a superbly-managed, high-return banking operation in which we increased our ownership to just under %, the most we can own without the approval of the Federal Reserve Board. ~Warren Buffett

Never give up searching for the job that you’re passionate about. Try to find the job you’d have if you were independently rich. Forget about the pay. When you’re associating with the people that you love, doing what you love, it doesn’t get any better than that. ~Warren Buffett

The speed at which a business success is recognized, furthermore, is not that important as long as the company's intrinsic value is increasing at a satisfactory rate. In fact, delayed recognition can be an advantage: It may give us the chance to buy more of a good thing at a bargain price. ~Warren Buffett

That which is not worth doing at all is not worth doing well. ~Warren Buffett

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked. ~Warren Buffett

Investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. If you've got talents, no one can take them from you. ~Warren Buffett

The Stock Market is designed to transfer money from the Active to the Patient. ~Warren Buffett

Forecasts usually tell us more of the forecaster than of the forecast ~Warren Buffett

Well, one time some attractive woman sat next to Charlie and asked him what he owed his success to, and, unfortunately, she insisted on a one word answer. He had a speech prepared that would have gone on for several hours. But when forced to boil it down to one word, he said that was "rational". You know, he comes equipped for rationality, and he applies it in business. He doesn't always apply it elsewhere, but he applies it in business and that has made him a huge business success. ~Warren Buffett

I lose confidence in other people, all kinds of institutions. ~Warren Buffett

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong. ~Warren Buffett

AIG would be doing fine today. It was one of the ten largest companies in the United States in terms of market value, over billion, the most respected insurer and everything in the world. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I get to do what I like to do every single day of the year. ~Warren Buffett

In the insurance business, there is no statute of limitation on stupidity. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

The advice "you never go broke taking a profit" is foolish. ~Warren Buffett

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks. ~Warren Buffett

I look for businesses in which I think I can predict what they're going to look like in ten to fifteen years time. Take Wrigley's chewing gum. I don't think the internet is going to change how people chew gum. ~Warren Buffett

The thing to do is to keep your mind when the world around you is losing theirs. ~Warren Buffett

Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance. That won't change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO's pay. The upshot is that a mediocre-or-worse CEO - aided by his handpicked VP of human relations and a consultant from the ever-accommodating firm of Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo - all too often receives gobs of money from an ill-designed compensation arrangement. ~Warren Buffett

Beware [of] the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns. ~Warren Buffett

Personally, I really hope I can treat everyone equally. I think I have done a pretty good job so far but I know I can do it better. ~Warren Buffett

Don't settle for anything other than your passion - if you're lucky enough to find it. ~Warren Buffett

How do you beat Bobby Fischer? You play him at any game but chess. I try to stay in games where I have an edge. ~Warren Buffett

We do not have, nor have had, and never will have an opinion about where the stock market, interest rates, or business activity will be a year from now. ~Warren Buffett

Just imagine living on , a year. I mean you have percent of the population doing that. So you don't have to worry about guys like me. ~Warren Buffett

When it's raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble. ~Warren Buffett

In the long run managements stressing accounting appearance over economic substance usually achieve little of either. ~Warren Buffett

Be fearful when the markets get greedy, be greedy when the markets get fearful. ~Warren Buffett

We will continue to ignore political and economic forecasts, which are an expensive distraction for many investors and businessmen. Thirty years ago, no one could have foreseen the huge expansion of the Vietnam War, wage and price controls, two oil shocks, the resignation of a president, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a one-day drop in the Dow of points, or treasury bill yields fluctuating between .% and .%. ~Warren Buffett

Predicting rain doesn't count. Building arks does. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I won't close down a business of subnormal profitability merely to add a fraction of a point to our corporate returns. I also feel it inappropriate for even an exceptionally profitable company to fund an operation once it appears to have unending losses in prospect. Adam Smith would disagree with my first proposition and Karl Marx would disagree with my second; the middle ground is the only position that leaves me comfortable. ~Warren Buffett

As of , in fact-though the picture would have improved since then-the money that had been made since the dawn of aviation by all of this country's airline companies was zero. Absolutely zero. ~Warren Buffett

Credit worthiness is like virginity, it can be preserved but not restored very easily, so it is crazy to play around with it. ~Warren Buffett

Time is your friend, impulse is your enemy. Take advantage of compound interest and don't be captivated by the siren song of the market. ~Warren Buffett

You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. ~Warren Buffett

When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night's sleep for the chance of extra profits. ~Warren Buffett

Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist. ~Warren Buffett

It's easy to identify many investment managers with great recent records. But past results, though important, do not suffice when prospective performance is being judged. How the record has been achieved is crucial... ~Warren Buffett

If you invested in a very low cost index fund - where you don't put the money in at one time, but average in over years -you'll do better than % of people who start investing at the same time. ~Warren Buffett

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. ~Warren Buffett

A market downturn, doesn't bother us. For us and our long term investors, it is an opportunity to increase our ownership of great companies with great management at good prices. Only for short term investors and market timers is a correction not an opportunity. ~Warren Buffett

Exercise humility and restraint. ~Warren Buffett

If you understood a business perfectly and the future of the business, you would need very little in the way of a margin of safety. So, the more vulnerable the business is, assuming you still want to invest in it, the larger margin of safety you'd need. If you're driving a truck across a bridge that says it holds , pounds and you've got a , pound vehicle, if the bridge is inches above the crevice it covers, you may feel okay, but if it's over the Grand Canyon, you may feel you want a little larger margin of safety... ~Warren Buffett

A low-cost index fund is the most sensible equity investment for the great majority of investors. My mentor, Ben Graham, took this position many years ago, and everything I have seen since convinces me of its truth. ~Warren Buffett

The best jockey in the world is never going to win races riding a lame horse. But even a mediocre jockey can win races riding a champion. ~Warren Buffett

Money will not change how healthy you are or how many people love you. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I mean, you can explain the fact that these are depressed prices, you know. We think these assets are going to be worth a lot more. And I think that case can be made in certain situations. But I think to just say, you know, we're going to say a dollar of cash is worth $ all of a sudden, it isn't worth $. It's worth a dollar today. ~Warren Buffett

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

It's a big mistake to try and mislead people. They will turn around. ~Warren Buffett

People always ask me where they should go to work, and I always tell them to go to work for whom they admire the most. ~Warren Buffett

A newspaper that reduces its coverage of the news important to its community is certain to reduce its readership as well ~Warren Buffett

Always associate yourself with people who are better than you. ~Warren Buffett

If you don't make mistakes you can't make decisions. ~Warren Buffett

Never test the depth of river with both the feet. ~Warren Buffett

Turnarounds seldom turn. ~Warren Buffett

If you want your business to survive for years, you've got to make it through every single day for years. It's not enough to do it .% of the time. ~Warren Buffett

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

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. ~Warren Buffett

Let only individuals contribute - with sensible limits per election. Otherwise, we are well on our way to ensuring that a government of the moneyed, by the moneyed, and for the moneyed shall not perish from the earth. ~Warren Buffett

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

If you owe money, you can't pay them out. You just pay for everything, you do smart things, you eventually get very rich. ~Warren Buffett

The . hitter expects, and also deserves, a big payoff for his performance - even if he plays for a cellar-dwelling team. And a . hitter should get no reward - even if he plays for a pennant winner. ~Warren Buffett

Asset values and earning power are the dominant factors affecting the valuation of a controlling interest in a business. Market price, which governs valuation of minority interest positions, is of little or no importance in valuing a controlling interest. ~Warren Buffett

You have to be able to communicate in life and probably schools underemphasize that. If you can't talk to people or write, you're giving up your potential. ~Warren Buffett

I'm not worried they're all about the investments we make. I mean, listen, this country - we've got $, or $, of GDP per capita. Now, we've done pretty darn well. We'll do better in the future. ~Warren Buffett

I'm the luckiest guy in the world in terms of what I do for a living. No one can tell me to do things I don't believe in or things I think are stupid. ~Warren Buffett

Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results. ~Warren Buffett

Never get too hung up on mistakes. ~Warren Buffett

The ability to say no is a tremendous advantage for an investor. ~Warren Buffett

I think the Congress will do the right thing. I think that they've - you know, they got into certain arguments and they start worrying about assessing blame, and there is a little demagoguery, but in the end, something this important, they'll do the right thing. So this really is an economic Pearl Harbor. That sounds melodramatic, but I've never used that phrase before. And this really is one. ~Warren Buffett

We also believe candour benefits us as managers. The CEO who misleads often in public eventually misleads himself in private. ~Warren Buffett

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

Risk can be greatly reduced by concentrating on only a few holdings. ~Warren Buffett

The truth is, everything that has happened in my life... that I thought was a crushing event at the time, has turned out for the better. ~Warren Buffett

I think what people understand there probably - well, they were hoping the private sector would do it [rescuing AIG ]. ~Warren Buffett

A Company should be viewed as an unfolding movie, not as a still photograph ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Buy into a company because you want to own it, not because you want the stock to go up. ~Warren Buffett

You can't make a good deal with a bad person. ~Warren Buffett

We would do best in a market where everyone acted foolishly. ~Warren Buffett

A great investment opportunity occurs when a marvelous business encounters a one-time huge, but solvable problem. ~Warren Buffett

If you want to soar like an eagle in life, you can't be flocking with the turkeys. ~Warren Buffett

In the great majority of cases we simply do not know enough about the industry or company to come to sensible judgments-in that situation we pass. ~Warren Buffett

There 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 Buffett

The stockmarket is a semi-psychotic creature given to extremes of elation and despair. ~Warren Buffett

Our marketable equities tell us by their operating results - not by their daily, or even yearly, price quotations - whether our investments are successful. The market may ignore business success for a while, but eventually will confirm it. ~Warren Buffett

Honesty is a very expensive gift, Don't expect it from cheap people. ~Warren Buffett

People should always know better. ~Warren Buffett

We've got a wonderful economic formula in this country. ~Warren Buffett

Do what you love and work for whom you admire the most, and you've given yourself the best chance in life you can ~Warren Buffett

We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time. ~Warren Buffett

I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am no investor. ~Warren Buffett

What's hot today isn't likely to be hot tomorrow. The stock market reverts to fundamental returns over the long run. Don't follow the herd. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

One of the ironies of the stock market is the emphasis on activity. Brokers, using terms such as 'marketability' and 'liquidity,' sing the praises of companies with high share turnover... but investors should understand that what is good for the croupier is not good for the customer. A hyperactive stock market is the pick pocket of enterprise. ~Warren Buffett

I mean the truth is, I've never had it so good in terms of taxes. I am paying the lowest tax rate that I've ever paid in my life. ~Warren Buffett

The future is never clear; you pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values. ~Warren Buffett

If principles can become dated, they're not principles. ~Warren Buffett

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

We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet. ~Warren Buffett

Always invest for the long term. ~Warren Buffett

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult. ~Warren Buffett

An 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 Buffett

Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway. ~Warren Buffett

You have hedge funds and people like that buying these assets to yield or percent, I mean, that's the buyer for these people that are trying to unload them. ~Warren Buffett

You could be somewhere where the mail was delayed three weeks and do just fine investing. ~Warren Buffett

Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill. ~Warren Buffett

The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last years, and I hope the American public is catching on. ~Warren Buffett

At this point, when treasury bills, seven day treasury bills at /th of one percent, it's not because people want to earn /th of one percent, it's because they trust the fact the treasury will give it back to them next week. ~Warren Buffett

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. ~Warren Buffett

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

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 labelled speculation ~Warren Buffett

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

Our future rates of gain will fall far short of those achieved in the past. Berkshire's capital base is now simply too large to allow us to earn truly outsized returns. If you believe otherwise, you should consider a career in sales but avoid one in mathematics. ~Warren Buffett

Managers and investors alike must understand that accounting numbers are the beginning, not the end, of business valuation. ~Warren Buffett

My net worth is the market value of holdings less the tax payable upon sale. The liability is just as real as the asset unless the value of the asset declines (ouch), the asset is given away (no comment), or I die with it. The latter course of action would appear to at least border on a Pyrrhic victory. ~Warren Buffett

The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd. ~Warren Buffett

The truth is that I've got all my net worth safely in Berkshire and I will never sell a share so there is no one more concerned about what happens after my death than I am. ~Warren Buffett

Lethargy, bordering on sloth should remain the cornerstone of an investment style. ~Warren Buffett

Basically, when you get to my age, you'll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. ~Warren Buffett

The stock market is a wonderfully efficient mechanism for transferring wealth from the impatient to the patient. ~Warren Buffett

Only when you combine sound intellect with emotional discipline do you get rational behavior. ~Warren Buffett

No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. ~Warren Buffett

You don't have to be a genius to invest well ~Warren Buffett

There's not many businesses where someone can come in and offer to cut the price in half and somebody doesn't think about shifting. But that's the nature of the ratings business. ~Warren Buffett

I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

We say we are trying to buy into businesses with excellent economics, run by honest and able people at a decent price. We buy very few securities, so we look at it as "focused" investing. ~Warren Buffett

A 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 Buffett

When asked how he became so successful in investing, Buffett answered: 'we read hundreds and hundreds of annual reports every year. ~Warren Buffett

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

An investor needs to do very few things right as long as he or she avoids big mistakes. ~Warren Buffett

Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We'll break out of it. It takes time. ~Warren Buffett

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure understated. ~Warren Buffett

I did not think I would see the day when, you know, an AIG would not be able to have its checks clear. ~Warren Buffett

Many stock options in the corporate world have worked in exactly that fashion: they have gained in value simply because management retained earnings, not because it did well with the capital in its hands. ~Warren Buffett

I like to buy things I can understand. I do a lot of research on things. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

As one of my older friends says, "Nostalgia just isn't what it used to be." Let's take a stab at it, anyway. ~Warren Buffett

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

We try to exert a Ted Williams kind of discipline. In his book The Science of Hitting, Ted explains that he carved the strike zone into cells, each the size of a baseball. Swinging only at balls in his "best" cell, he knew, would allow him to bat .; reaching for balls in his "worst" spot, the low outside corner of the strike zone, would reduce him to .. In other words, waiting for the fat pitch would mean a trip to the Hall of Fame; swinging indiscriminately would mean a ticket to the minors. ~Warren Buffett

Unless your answers are clearly better, copy the answers of your betters. ~Warren Buffett

When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

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

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. ~Warren Buffett

[People] have seen the credit market seize up. They're worried about money market funds, although the latest proposition from government should take care of that. They've seen eight percent of the bank deposits in the United States get moved very skillfully, I might say, within the last couple of weeks from institutions that they thought were fine a few months ago to other institutions. They are not wrong to be worried. ~Warren Buffett

I like to go for cinches. I like to shoot fish in a barrel. But I like to do it after the water has run out. ~Warren Buffett

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

Great investment opportunities come around when excellent companies are surrounded by unusual circumstances that cause the stock to be misappraised. ~Warren Buffett

To win, the first thing you have to do is not lose. ~Warren Buffett

Of one thing be certain: if a CEO is enthused about a particularly foolish acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his stance. Only in fairy tales are emperors told that they are naked. ~Warren Buffett

Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. ~Warren Buffett

First come the innovators, then come the imitators, then come the idiots. ~Warren Buffett

At Berkshire, I both initiate and monitor every derivatives contract on our books ... If Berkshire ever gets in trouble, it will be my fault. It will not be because of the misjudgments made by a risk committee or chief risk officer. ~Warren Buffett

Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior. ~Warren Buffett

I don't want to be on the other side of the table from the customer. I was never selling anything that I didn't believe in myself or use myself. ~Warren Buffett

Diversification may preserve wealth, but concentration builds wealth. ~Warren Buffett

Be brave when others are afraid, and afraid when others are brave. ~Warren Buffett

Investors should remember that their scorecard is not computed using Olympic-diving methods: Degree-of-difficulty doesn't count. If you are right about a business whole value is largely dependent on a single key factor that is both easy to understand and enduring, the payoff is the same as if you had correctly analyzed an investment alternative characterized by many constantly shifting and complex variables. ~Warren Buffett

You can't buy what is popular and do well. ~Warren Buffett

We've used up a lot of bullets. And we talk about stimulus. But the truth is, we're running a federal deficit that's percent of GDP. That is stimulative as all get out. It's more stimulative than any policy we've followed since World War II. ~Warren Buffett

My father was the best person i've ever known. ~Warren Buffett

I think the worst mistake you can make in stocks is to buy or sell based on current headlines, ~Warren Buffett

Remember that the stock market is manic-depressive. ~Warren Buffett

Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction. ~Warren Buffett

People will always try to stop you from doing the right thing if it is unconventional. ~Warren Buffett

You do not adequately protect yourself by being half awake when other are sleeping. ~Warren Buffett

Cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day. ~Warren Buffett

With a wonderful business, you can figure out what will happen; you can't figure out when it will happen. You don't want to focus on when, you want to focus on what. If you're right about what, you don't have to worry about when ~Warren Buffett

I think the rest of the country should be paying less, the percent that [Barack] Obama talks about or maybe even a little higher than that. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

It's going to be tough because the economy is going to be getting worse for a while. And it might fall off a cliff if this doesn't pass. But nobody will ever know that if it does. ~Warren Buffett

The th century belonged to England, the th century belonged to the U.S., and the st century belongs to China. Invest accordingly. ~Warren Buffett

I think that actually people in my situation should be paying more tax. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Benign neglect, bordering on sloth, remains the hallmark of our investment process. ~Warren Buffett

We intend to continue our practice of working only with people whom we like and admire. This policy not only maximizes our chances for good results, it also ensures us an extraordinarily good time. ~Warren Buffett

Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down. ~Warren Buffett

If you can't communicate and talk to other people and get across your ideas, you're giving up your potential. ~Warren Buffett

No formula in finance tells you that the moat is feet wide and feet deep. That's what drives the academics crazy. They can compute standard deviations and betas, but they can't understand moats. ~Warren Buffett

Gold has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative. ~Warren Buffett

Wild swings in share prices have more to do with the "lemming- like" behaviour of institutional investors than with the aggregate returns of the company they own. ~Warren Buffett

I was lucky to have the right heroes. Tell me who your heroes are and I'll tell you how you'll turn out to be. The qualities of the one you admire are the traits that you, with a little practice, can make your own, and that, if practiced, will become habit forming. ~Warren Buffett

I really like my life. I've arranged my life so that I can do what I want. ~Warren Buffett

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 ~Warren Buffett

I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life. ~Warren Buffett

It will be good for us in the long run, and I mean there are, you know, six and a half billion people in this world. And it's great for million to keep enjoying more and more property, but I think it's terrific if, you know, the remainder do. ~Warren Buffett

Our leaders have asked for 'shared sacrifice.' But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched. ~Warren Buffett

You pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus. ~Warren Buffett

If you have more than or I.Q. points, you can afford to give the rest away. You don't need extraordinary intelligence to succeed as an investor. ~Warren Buffett

You're dealing with a lot of silly people in the marketplace; it's like a great big casino and everyone else is boozing. If you can stick with Pepsi, you should be O.K. ~Warren Buffett

[Economy] is flat on the floor, and the paramedics have arrived. And they shouldn't argue about whether they put the resuscitation equipment a quarter of an inch this way or a quarter of an inch this way, or they shouldn't start criticizing the patient, because he didn't have a blood pressure test or something like that. They should do what's needed right now. ~Warren Buffett

If you understood a business perfectly and the future of the business, you need very little in the way of a margin of safety. ~Warren Buffett

When Berkshire buys common stock, we approach the transaction as if we were buying into a private business. ~Warren Buffett

It isn't given to man to be able to run a financial institution where different interest-rate scenarios will prevail on all of that so as to produce kind of smooth, regular earnings from a very large base to start with. ~Warren Buffett

Suppose that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. This is a good one, he says enthusiastically. I'm in it, and I think you should be, too. ~Warren Buffett

Confidence in markets and in institutions, it's a lot like oxygen. When you have it, you don't even think about it. It's indispensable. You can go years without thinking about it. When it's gone for five minutes, it's the only thing to think about. ~Warren Buffett

It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction. ~Warren Buffett

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

I have no use whatsoever for projections or forecasts. They create an illusion of apparent precision. The more meticulous they are, the more concerned you should be. We never look at projections, but we care very much about, and look very deeply at, track records. If a company has a lousy track record, but a very bright future, we will miss the opportunity... ~Warren Buffett

Energy deregulation will be the largest transfer of wealth in history. ~Warren Buffett

Your money can be inflated away but your knowledge and talent cannot. ~Warren Buffett

The only question is whether you're going to do it today or tomorrow. If you keep saying you're going to do it tomorrow, you'll never do it. You have to get on it today. ~Warren Buffett

I wouldn't mind going to jail if I had three cellmates who played bridge ~Warren Buffett

There is no question we have an access stock. ~Warren Buffett

We've seen what about % of our human capacity can accomplish. Visualize what % can do. ~Warren Buffett

The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule. ~Warren Buffett

Like most trends, at the beginning it's driven by fundamentals, at some point speculation takes over. What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end. ~Warren Buffett

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

The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything. ~Warren Buffett

Investing is forgoing consumption now in order to have the ability to consume more at a later date. ~Warren Buffett

Anyone who believes a growth rate in excess of % per annum over the long term is attainable should pursue a career in sales, but avoid one in mathematics. ~Warren Buffett

What could be more advantageous in an intellectual contest - whether it be chess, bridge, or stock selection - than to have opponents who have been taught that thinking is a waste of energy? ~Warren Buffett

Never lie under any circumstances. ~Warren Buffett

Paradoxically, when 'dumb' money acknowledges its limitations, it ceases to be dumb. ~Warren Buffett

I 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 . I'll leave at two minutes to . But the trouble is, there are no clocks on the wall. And everybody thinks they're going to leave at two minutes to . ~Warren Buffett

The most important thing in terms of your circle of competence is not how large the area of it is, but how well you've defined the perimeter. ~Warren Buffett

In my opinion, the entire field of investment management, involving hundreds of billions of dollars, would be more satisfactorily conducted if everyone had a good yardstick for measurement of ability and sensibly applied it. ~Warren Buffett

You get what I call the natural progression, the three Is. The innovators, the imitators, and the idiots. ~Warren Buffett

If some institution wants to sell you a billion dollars worth of mortgages, they might have to sell million in the market, and then you'll buy the other 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 Buffett

If I knew where I was going to want to live the next five or years I would buy a home and I'd finance it with a -year mortgage... It's a terrific deal. ~Warren Buffett

I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of - of American capitalism. ~Warren Buffett

The U.S. Treasury has got borrowing costs like nobody else has. ~Warren Buffett

The financial calculus that Charlie and I employ would never permit our trading a good night's sleep for a shot at a few extra percentage points of return. I've never believed in risking what my friends and family have and need in order to pursue what they don't have and don't need. ~Warren Buffett

The worst sort of business is one that grows rapidly, requires significant capital to engender the growth, and then earns little or no money. Think airlines. Here a durable competitive advantage has proven elusive ever since the days of the Wright Brothers. Indeed, if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down. ~Warren Buffett

What motivates most gold purchasers is their belief that the ranks of the fearful will grow. During the past decade that belief has proved correct. Beyond that, the rising price has on its own generated additional buying enthusiasm, attracting purchasers who see the rise as validating an investment thesis. As 'bandwagon' investors join any party, they create their own truth - for a while. ~Warren Buffett

There is no perfect mathematical formula for pricing a business. ~Warren Buffett

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

In a commodity business, it's very hard to be smarter than your dumbest competitor. ~Warren Buffett

We only want to link up with people whom we like, admire, and trust. ... We do not wish to join with managers who lack admirable qualities, no matter how attractive the prospects of their business. We've never succeeded in making a good deal with a bad person. ~Warren Buffett

For example: () As if governed by Newton's First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; () Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; () Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and () The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated. ~Warren Buffett

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 investors make because it's always uncertain. People say it's a time of uncertainty. It was uncertain on September th, , 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. ~Warren Buffett

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

If horses had controlled investment decisions, there would have been no auto industry. ~Warren Buffett

This country is going - be living better ten years from now than it is now. It will be living better in years from now than ten years from now. The ingredients that made this country, you know, the miracle of the world - I mean we had a seven for one improvement in the average American standard of living in the th century. ~Warren Buffett

If you're in the luckiest one per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other per cent. ~Warren Buffett

Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars. ~Warren Buffett

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

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

My rather puritanical view is that any investment manager, whether operating as broker, investment counselor of a trust department, investment company, etc., should be willing to state unequivocally what he is going to attempt to accomplish and how he proposes to measure the extent to which he gets the job done. ~Warren Buffett

When you listen to tax-cut rhetoric, remember that giving one class of taxpayer a break requires - now or down the line - that an equivalent burden be imposed on other parties. In other words, if I get a break, someone else pays. Government can't deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole. It can however, determine who pays for lunch. ~Warren Buffett

The market system rewards me outlandishly for what I do, but that doesn't mean I'm any more deserving of a good life than a teacher or a doctor or someone who fights in Afghanistan. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I don't want to hold out false hopes that the - by some magic moment, that things will turn around in a couple months because they wouldn't, Charlie. I mean, and it's a big mistake to try and mislead people. ~Warren Buffett

The reaction of weak management to weak operations is often weak accounting. ~Warren Buffett

It is impossible to unsign a contract, so do all your thinking before you sign. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

So if you are evaluating others (or yourself!) in the investment field, think out some standards - apply them - interpret them. ~Warren Buffett

My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest. ~Warren Buffett

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

It makes a difference who the treasury secretary is. ~Warren Buffett

In investing, just as in baseball, to put runs on the scoreboard, one must watch the playing field, not the scoreboard. ~Warren Buffett

When somebody makes it very easy for you to do it by saying you don't really have to put up my money, you can lie about your income a little, or we'll give you percent mortgage, you're going to do it, because everybody that's done it has been proven right. You have social tools, and you're going to feel like an idiot if you didn't do it, because the house cost more. ~Warren Buffett

The strategy we've adopted precludes our following standard diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the strategy must be riskier than that employed by more conventional investors. We disagree. We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it. ~Warren Buffett

So some guy may know how to make money in cocoa beans, but I don't so I just let him have that. But it's got to be something I understand. It's got to be a business with fundamentally good economics. It's got to be a management that I like and trust and admire. And it's got to be a price that makes sense. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I don't read economic forecasts. I don't read the funny papers. ~Warren Buffett

It takes years to build an investment bank and only five minutes to convince you to sell me preferred stock in it at a % interest rate. ~Warren Buffett

You should invest in a business that even a fool can run, because someday a fool will. ~Warren Buffett

None of this means, however, that a business or stock is an intelligent purchase simply because it is unpopular; a contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling. Unfortunately, Bertrand Russell's observation about life in general applies with unusual force in the financial world: Most men would rather die than think. Many do. ~Warren Buffett

It's just that right now the athlete's on the floor. But we - this is a super athlete. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Be fearful when there is greed and be greedy when there is fear. ~Warren Buffett

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

Simply stated, in the world of business, how much money you get from a sale or how much you have to pay when making a purchase determines whether you make or lose money and how rich you ultimately become. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

The fact that people will be full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable. ~Warren Buffett

Without passion, you don't have energy. Without energy, you have nothing. ~Warren Buffett

The secret to happiness is having low expectations. ~Warren Buffett

Take the probability of loss times the amount of possible loss from the probability of gain times the amount of possible gain. That is what we're trying to do. It's imperfect, but that's what it's all about. ~Warren Buffett

Just look at that Forbes . Takes a billion three to get on the Forbes this year. And the aggregate wealth is just staggering. And those people are paying less percentage of their total income to the federal government than their receptionists are [...] I'll bet a million dollars against any member of the Forbes who challenges - me that the average for the Forbes will be less than the average of their receptionists. ~Warren Buffett

What we really want to do is buy businesses that we would be happy to own forever. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I know what I want to do, and it makes sense to get going. ~Warren Buffett

We have usually made our best purchases when apprehensions about some macro event were at a peak. Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist. ~Warren Buffett

We have embraced the st century by entering such cutting-edge industries as brick, carpet, insulation and paint. Try to control your excitement. ~Warren Buffett

It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results. ~Warren Buffett

If knowing history made you rich, librarians would be billionaires. ~Warren Buffett

First, many in Wall Street - a community in which quality control is not prized - will sell investors anything they will buy. ~Warren Buffett

Asset-heavy businesses generally earn low rates of return - rates that often barely provide enough capital to fund the inflationary needs of the existing business, with nothing left over for real growth, for distribution to owners, or for acquisition of new businesses ~Warren Buffett

Continually challenge and be willing to amend your best loved ideas. ~Warren Buffett

The wise man once said invest young ~Warren Buffett

A hyperactive stock market is the pickpocket of enterprise. ~Warren Buffett

Don't invest in pieces of papers (stocks), invest in great businesses underlying them ~Warren Buffett

If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio's market value. ~Warren Buffett

Very successful people say no to almost everything. ~Warren Buffett

Good profits simply are not inconsistent with good behavior. ~Warren Buffett

Investing is laying out money today to receive more money tomorrow. ~Warren Buffett

The good thing is, we have household formation in this country. ~Warren Buffett

We like to buy businesses, but we don't like to sell them. ~Warren Buffett

It's not that I want money. It's the fun of making money and watching it grow. ~Warren Buffett

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. ~Warren Buffett

To invest successfully, you need not understand beta, efficient markets, modern portfolio theory, option pricing or emerging markets. You may, in fact, be better off knowing nothing of these. That, of course, is not the prevailing view at most business schools, whose finance curriculum tends to be dominated by such subjects. In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses - How to Value a Business, and How to Think About Market Prices. ~Warren Buffett

The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth. ~Warren Buffett

It's the deleveraging that's going on right now that has caused the credit crisis. ~Warren Buffett

Businesses always have opportunities to improve service, product lines, manufacturing techniques, and the like, and obviously these opportunities should be seized. But a business that constantly encounters major change also encounters many chances for major error ~Warren Buffett

Uncertainty is the friend of the buyer of long term values. ~Warren Buffett

We will only do with your money what we would do with our own. ~Warren Buffett

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

Success in investing doesn't correlate with I.Q. Once you are above the level of ; once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing. ~Warren Buffett

The American worker is more productive than he's ever been. ~Warren Buffett

Take the high road; it's far less crowded. ~Warren Buffett

A pack of lemmings looks like a group of rugged individualists compared with Wall Street when it gets a concept in its teeth. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

For some reason, people take their cues from price action rather than from values. What doesn't work is when you start doing things that you don't understand or because they worked last week for somebody else. The dumbest reason in the world to buy a stock is because it's going up. ~Warren Buffett

Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for years. ~Warren Buffett

The key to success is emotional stability. ~Warren Buffett

Investors, of course, can, by their own behavior make stock ownership highly risky. And many do. Active trading, attempts to "time" market movements, inadequate diversification, the payment of high and unnecessary fees to managers and advisors, and the use of borrowed money can destroy the decent returns that a life-long owner of equities would otherwise enjoy. Indeed, borrowed money has no place in the investor's tool kit. ~Warren Buffett

When I take a look at a company's annual report, if I don't understand it, they don't want me to understand it. ~Warren Buffett

We've had public companies in the past in that business and they bleed. We've got a lot more blood than they do. ~Warren Buffett

You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. ~Warren Buffett

I know that Congress will do the right thing. ~Warren Buffett

Do not take yearly results too seriously. Instead, focus on four or five-year averages. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

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

I would say the biggest single cause was we had an incredible residential real estate bubble. ~Warren Buffett

Follow your passion. I always tell college students to take the job that you would take if you were independently wealthy. You’re going to do well at it. ~Warren Buffett

We need to throw the resources at this that are necessary. But like I say, we are not spending money. I mean, if we buy these assets intelligently, the United States Treasury will make money. I mean, it's borrowing money. It's just a few percent a year. ~Warren Buffett

The [stock] market,like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But, unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do. ~Warren Buffett

If at first you do succeed, quit trying on investing. ~Warren Buffett

You can be sure that over the next years, you'll see something that you did not think was possible. ~Warren Buffett

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

The commission of the investment sins listed above is not limited to 'the little guy.' Huge institutional investors, viewed as a group, have long underperformed the unsophisticated index-fund investor who simply sits tight for decades. A major reason has been fees: Many institutions pay substantial sums to consultants who, in turn, recommend high-fee managers. And that is a fool's game. ~Warren Buffett

I think that both parties should declare the debt limit as a political weapon of mass destruction which can't be used. I mean, it is silly to have a country that has years building up its reputation and then have people threaten to tear it down because they're not getting some other matter. ~Warren Buffett

When Berkshire Hathaway laid out three billion dollars for GE today, we didn't spend it, we invested it. When the Federal government buys the mortgages, they're not spending it, they're investing it. Now, they're investing it in distress type assets but they're buying them at distress prices if they buy them at market. It's the kind of stuff I love to do. I just don't have million. Maybe we could go in it together. ~Warren Buffett

The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble...We want to buy them when they're on the operating table. ~Warren Buffett

I make plenty of mistakes and I'll make plenty more mistakes, too. That's part of the game. You've just got to make sure that the right things overcome the wrong ones. ~Warren Buffett

With each investment you make, you should have the courage and the conviction to place at least ten per cent of your net worth in that stock ~Warren Buffett

You shouldn't own common stocks if a per cent decrease in their value in a short period of time would cause you acute distress. ~Warren Buffett

As I have mentioned before, we cannot make the same sort of money out of permanent ownership of controlled businesses that can be made from buying and reselling such businesses, or from skilled investment in marketable securities. Nevertheless, they offer a pleasant long term form of activity (when conducted in conjunction with high grade, able people) at satisfactory rates of return. ~Warren Buffett

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

Buy a business, don't rent stocks. ~Warren Buffett

You do things when the opportunities come along. I've had periods in my life when I've had a bundle of ideas come along, and I've had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I'll do something. If not, I won't do a damn thing. ~Warren Buffett

If book knowledge made great investors, than the librarians would all be rich. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I've read about all the sales today. If you're an auto dealer, you're feeling it. If you're a furniture retailer like we are, you're feeling it. If you're a jewelry retailer, you're feeling it. I know some of these businesses because we're in them. Yeah, it's being felt, but it will be felt big time more if we don't do something about it, what's going on. ~Warren Buffett

People who watch their weight, golf scores, and fuel bills seem to shun quantitative evaluation of their investment management skills although it involves the most important client in the world-themselves. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I think confidence will come back. ~Warren Buffett

The greater the potential for reward in the value portfolio, the less risk there is. ~Warren Buffett

You're neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You're right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right - that's the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don't have to worry about anybody else. ~Warren Buffett

I have no views as to where it will be, but the one thing I can tell you is it won't do anything between now and then except look at you. Whereas, you know, Coca-Cola (KO) will be making money, and I think Wells Fargo (WFC) will be making a lot of money and there will be a lot - and it's a lot - it's a lot better to have a goose that keeps laying eggs than a goose that just sits there and eats insurance and storage and a few things like that. ~Warren Buffett

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

... not doing what we love in the name of greed is very poor management of our lives. ~Warren Buffett

Things you like to do should be a hobby of yours, but things the world does should be a business of yours. ~Warren Buffett

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

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. ~Warren Buffett

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

On his Giving Pledge philanthropy: The way I got the message out was to get a copy of FORBES, look down that list and start making phone calls! Bill and Melinda [Gates] did the same thing. So keep publishing the list so I can milk it. ~Warren Buffett

If you don't feel comfortable owning something for years, then don't own it for minutes. ~Warren Buffett

Failing conventionally is the route to go; as a group, lemmings may have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press ~Warren Buffett

I've never been very fully employed either. ~Warren Buffett

A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing. ~Warren Buffett

Fund consultants like to require style boxes such as "long-short," "macro," "international equities." At Berkshire our only style box is "smart." ~Warren Buffett

Asking for financial advice from a financial planner is like asking a barber if you need a hair cut. ~Warren Buffett

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

If you have a great manager, you want to pay him very well. ~Warren Buffett

It's better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you'll drift in that direction. ~Warren Buffett

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

Accounting is the language of business. ~Warren Buffett

Managers thinking about accounting issues should never forget one of Abraham Lincoln's favorite riddles: How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg? The answer: Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. ~Warren Buffett

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

Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing ~Warren Buffett

You know, with your money and my brains, I mean, there's no telling how far we'd go. ~Warren Buffett

I've argued with the senators and congressmen I've talked to. You don't want to be too little too late. If you buy them at the right price, you may be buying two trillion of face value. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Well, it may be all right in practice, but it will never work in theory ~Warren Buffett

The three most important words in investing...Margin of Safety. ~Warren Buffett

Knowing the edge of your competency is important. If you think you know more than you do, you will get in trouble. ~Warren Buffett

You have to understand accounting and you have to understand the nuances of accounting. It's the language of business and it's an imperfect language, but unless you are willing to put in the effort to learn accounting - how to read and interpret financial statements - you really shouldn't select stocks yourself. ~Warren Buffett

I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here. ~Warren Buffett

Well, I think the biggest mistake is not learning the habits of saving properly early. Because saving is a habit. And then, trying to get rich quick. It's pretty easy to get well-to-do slowly. But it's not easy to get rich quick. ~Warren Buffett

I've made money over the years by buying into good companies, run by good people, at attractive prices. And I don't try and make it out of buying into the market at one point and selling at another point. ~Warren Buffett

We don't get paid for being busy, we get paid for being right. ~Warren Buffett

The much-maligned idle rich have received a bad rap: They have maintained their wealth while many There is scarcely an instance of a man who has made a fortune by speculation and kept it. Andrew Carnegie of the energetic rich, aggressive real estate operators, corporate acquirers, oil drillers, etc. have their fortunes disappear. ~Warren Buffett

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

I have got this letter which actually goes out the day after I die. It has already been written. And it says that: "Yesterday I died". And then it says: "That's bad news for me, but it's not bad news for you, the shareholders of Berkshire". And then I go on and explain what is going to happen. I know that is one time when they will be really interested in hearing from me. ~Warren Buffett

The only way to get love is to be lovable. It's very irritating if you have a lot of money. You'd like to think you could write a check: "I'll buy a million dollars' worth of love." But it doesn't work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get. ~Warren Buffett

I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about. ~Warren Buffett

The problem with commodities is that you are betting on what someone else would pay for them in six months. The commodity itself isn't going to do anything for you....it is an entirely different game to buy a lump of something and hope that somebody else pays you more for that lump two years from now than it is to buy something that you expect to produce income for you over time. ~Warren Buffett

In the end we must have people to match our principles, not the reverse. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I look at everything. That's my job. I really do, every day. I think about everything. ~Warren Buffett

There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning. ~Warren Buffett

Take me as an example. I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I'd been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can't run very fast. I'm not particularly strong. I'd probably end up as some wild animal's dinner. ~Warren Buffett

The best investment you can make is in yourself ~Warren Buffett

Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. ~Warren Buffett

When we went crazy, and we did go crazy on residential real estate, it set things in motion that just - the dominoes started toppling. ~Warren Buffett

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

Earnings can be pliable as putty when a charlatan heads the company reporting them. ~Warren Buffett

If you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control your money. ~Warren Buffett

I have three boxes on my desk: In, Out, and Too Hard. ~Warren Buffett

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

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

Mark Zuckerberg will be a hero to many young entrepreneurs years from now. Bill Gates will be a hero to others, and they will look to those [people] like I read books when I was in my teens about Rockefeller or Carnegie. ~Warren Buffett

In the end, alchemy, whether it is metallurgical or financial, fails. A base business can not be transformed into a golden business by tricks of accounting or capital structure. The man claiming to be a financial alchemist may become rich. But gullible investors rather than business achievements will usually be the source of his wealth. ~Warren Buffett

All there is to investing is picking good stocks at good times and staying with them as long as they remain good companies. ~Warren Buffett

People always should know better. People don't get - they don't get smarter about things that get as basic as greed. ~Warren Buffett

We've actually been pretty good on exports. I mean we are exporting % of our GDP now roughly. ~Warren Buffett

Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men. If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases. ~Warren Buffett

We can afford to lose money - even a lot of money. But we can't afford to lose reputation - even a shred of reputation. ~Warren Buffett

I am out of step with present conditions. When the game is no longer played your way, it is only human to say the new approach is all wrong, bound to lead to trouble, and so on. On one point, however, I am clear. I will not abandon a previous approach whose logic I understand ( although I find it difficult to apply ) even though it may mean foregoing large, and apparently easy, profits to embrace an approach which I don't fully understand, have not practiced successfully, and which possibly could lead to substantial permanent loss of capital. ~Warren Buffett

What's nice about investing is you don't have to swing at every pitch. ~Warren Buffett

It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price. ~Warren Buffett

When you get to my age, you'll measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. That's the ultimate test of how you've lived your life. ~Warren Buffett

Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they're doing. ~Warren Buffett

If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don't care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster. ~Warren Buffett

You don't need to be an expert in order to achieve satisfactory investment returns. But if you aren't, you must recognize your limitations and follow a course certain to work reasonably well. Keep things simple and don't swing for the fences. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I put heavy weight on certainty. It's not risky to buy securities at a fraction of what they're worth. ~Warren Buffett

If you can eliminate the government as a .% partner, then you will be much better off. ~Warren Buffett

An irresistable footnote: in , pension fund managers invested a record % of net funds available in equities - at full prices they couldn't buy enough of them. In , after the bottom had fallen out, they committed a then record low of % to stocks. ~Warren Buffett

Two rules: . Preserve the principal . When in doubt, see Rule #1. ~Warren Buffett

Interest rates are to asset prices what gravity is to the apple. When there are low interest rates, there is a very low gravitational pull on asset prices. ~Warren Buffett

Observing that the market was FREQUENTLY efficient, EMT Adherents went on to conclude incorrectly that it was ALWAYS efficient. The difference between these propositions is night and day. ~Warren Buffett

After years of buying and supervising a great variety of businesses, Charlie [Munger] and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them. To the extent we have been successful, it is because we have concentrated on identifying one-foot hurdles that we could step over rather than because we acquired any ability to clear seven-footers. ~Warren Buffett

When investing, pessimism is your friend, euphoria the enemy. ~Warren Buffett

I'm always interested in understanding the math of things and understanding as much as I can about all aspects of business. And what I learn today may be useful to me two years from now. That'sreally the wonderful thing about investments is your knowledge is cumulative. ~Warren Buffett

Buy stocks like you buy your groceries, not like you buy your perfume. ~Warren Buffett

Getting fired can produce a particularly bountiful payday for a CEO. Indeed, he can 'earn' more in that single day, while cleaning out his desk, than an American worker earns in a lifetime of cleaning toilets. Forget the old maxim about nothing succeeding like success: Today, in the executive suite, the all-too-prevalent rule is that nothing succeeds like failure. ~Warren Buffett

There's no use running if you're on the wrong road. ~Warren Buffett

It makes no difference to a widow with her savings in a percent passbook account whether she pays percent income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation or pays no income tax during years of 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 percent income tax but doesn't seem to notice that percent inflation is the economic equivalent. ~Warren Buffett

Over the years, Charlie [Munger, Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman] and I have observed many accounting -based frauds of staggering size. Few of the perpetrators have been punished; many have not even been censured. It has been far safer to steal large sums with pen than small sums with a gun. ~Warren Buffett

Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it's not going to get the business. ~Warren Buffett

Never risk what you have and need for what we don't have and don't need. ~Warren Buffett

Over the years, a number of very smart people have learned the hard way that a long string of impressive numbers multiplied by a single zero always equals zero. ~Warren Buffett

I read annual reports of the company I'm looking at and I read the annual reports of the competitors - that is the main source of material. ~Warren Buffett

Confidence is key. You're not going to put your money - you're not going to leave your money with me unless you're confident I'm going to give it back to you. ~Warren Buffett

Look for companies with high profit margins. ~Warren Buffett

I know the country works extremely well. You know, but when it isn't clogged up. ~Warren Buffett

It is unquestionably true that the investment companies have their money more conventionally invested than we do. To many people conventionality is indistinguishable from conservatism. In my view, this represents erroneous thinking. Neither a conventional nor an unconventional approach, per se, is conservative. ~Warren Buffett

You 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 Buffett

You 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 Buffett

Resolution Trust Company was set up to liquidate a bunch of assets that the government had inherited because the savings and loans went broke. ~Warren Buffett

There is no question that an important service is provided to investors by investment companies, investment advisors, trust departments, etc. This service revolves around the attainment of adequate diversification, the preservation of a long-term outlook, the ease of handling investment decisions and mechanics, and most importantly, the avoidance of the patently inferior investment techniques which seem to entice some individuals. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

If you own the only newspaper in town, up until the last five years or so, you have pricing power and you didn't have to go to the office. ~Warren Buffett

Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing. ~Warren Buffett

When a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact ~Warren Buffett

It's never paid to bet against America. ~Warren Buffett

I always invest in companies an idiot could run, because one day one will. ~Warren Buffett

If I eat , calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola, ~Warren Buffett

Accounting consequences do not influence our operating or capital-allocation decisions. When acquisition costs are similar, we much prefer to purchase $ of earnings that is not reportable by us under standard accounting principles than to purchase $ of earnings that is reportable. ~Warren Buffett

The important thing is to keep playing, to play against weak opponents and to play for big stakes. ~Warren Buffett

I would say that life at , I am having as much fun as I've ever had in my life. I mean I get to do what I love every day with the people I love-and it just doesn't get any better than that. ~Warren Buffett

Charlie and I have a number of filters that things have to get through before we'll think about them. ~Warren Buffett

... but the important thing is that when you do find one where you really do know what you are doing, you must buy in quantity.... Charlie and I have made a dozen or so very big decisions relative to net worth, although not as big as they should have been. And in each of those, we've known that we were almost certain to be right going in. ~Warren Buffett

Bad terminology is the enemy of good thinking. ~Warren Buffett

Our goal is to find an outstanding business at a sensible price, not a mediocre business at a bargain price. ~Warren Buffett

I think the FDIC was one of the great inventions of the American. ~Warren Buffett

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

I never buy anything unless I can fill out on a piece of paper my reasons. I may be wrong, but I would know the answer to that ...I'm paying $ billion today for the Coca Cola Company because... If you can't answer that question, you shouldn't buy it. If you can answer that question, and you do it a few times, you'll make a lot of money. ~Warren Buffett

Managers that always promise to 'make the numbers' will at some point be tempted to make up the numbers. ~Warren Buffett

Rule No. : Never lose money. Rule No. : Never forget rule No.. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Every day that goes by, I mean, if you don't react to Pearl Harbor for a week or two weeks or three weeks, you're behind in the war that you otherwise would have fought. ~Warren Buffett

You should look at stocks as small pieces of business. ~Warren Buffett

Taking jobs to build up your resume is the same as saving up sex for old age. ~Warren Buffett

In fact, in my adult lifetime, I don't think I've ever seen people as fearful economically as they are right now. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Having a large amount of leverage is like driving a car with a dagger on the steering wheel pointed at your heart. If you do that, you will be a better driver. There will be fewer accidents but when they happen, they will be fatal. ~Warren Buffett

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 to percent of your money. A good many lost their jobs. They lost very cushy lives, many of them. ~Warren Buffett

If the reason for doing something is that everyone else is doing it, it's not a good enough reason. ~Warren Buffett

The only time to buy these is on a day with no 'y' in it. ~Warren Buffett

Other guys read Playboy. I read annual reports. ~Warren Buffett

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 percent fall in value of a $ trillion asset, that's $ trillion. And when $ trillion lands - losses land in the wrong part of this economy, it can gum up the whole place. ~Warren Buffett

The trick is, when there is nothing to do, do nothing. ~Warren Buffett

Activity is the enemy of investment returns. ~Warren Buffett

Cash combined with courage in a time of crisis is priceless. ~Warren Buffett

It's quite clear that stocks are cheaper than bonds. I can't imagine anybody having bonds in their portfolio when they can own equities, a diversified group of equities. But people do because they, the lack of confidence. But that's what makes for the attractive prices. If they had their confidence back, they wouldn't be selling at these prices. And believe me, it will come back over time. ~Warren Buffett

I mean [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt didn't - you know, when he came in, he didn't print any money. ~Warren Buffett

A stock doesn't know that you own it. ~Warren Buffett

Would your reply possibly be this? Well, it all depends on what my tax rate will be on the gain you're saying we're going to make. If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of percent. Only in Grover Norquist's imagination does such a response exist. ~Warren Buffett

Time is the friend of the wonderful business. It's the enemy of the lousy business. If you're in a lousy business for a long time, you're going to get a lousy result, even if you buy it cheap. If you're in a wonderful business for a long time, even if you pay a little too much going in, you're going to get a wonderful result if you stay in a long time. ~Warren Buffett

I think once you start putting phony figures into financial statements, you get in a lot of trouble. And we've seen so much of that in the last years. ~Warren Buffett

I mean, Hank Paulson is in there [ Treasury] at the wrong time, probably shouldn't have taken the job. He's a friend of mine. But he knows markets, he knows corporations' work, he knows money, and he's got the interests of the country at heart. ~Warren Buffett

We're paying maybe percent of the income tax, but the payroll tax is over a third of the receipts of the federal government. And they don't take that from me on capital gains. They don't take that from me on dividends. ~Warren Buffett

There are certain things that cannot be adequately explained to a virgin either by words or pictures. ~Warren Buffett

I never try to predict the market. ~Warren Buffett

I could end the deficit in minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than % of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection. ~Warren Buffett

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

Possessing a powerful worldwide brand is essential for sustained success. ~Warren Buffett

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective. ~Warren Buffett

There's nothing inappropriate about having debt in America. It's what helped us grow over time. And it's when debt gets out of control that you worry. ~Warren Buffett

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

Anything can happen in stock markets and you ought to conduct your affairs so that if the most extraordinary events happen, that you're still around to play the next day. ~Warren Buffett

Never invest in a business you can't understand ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Truly conservative actions arise from intelligent hypotheses, correct facts and sound reasoning. ~Warren Buffett

Equities will do well over time - you just have to avoid getting excited when other people are getting excited. ~Warren Buffett

If you don't know the Jewelry, know the Jeweller ~Warren Buffett

A fool and his money are soon invited everywhere. ~Warren Buffett

Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful ~Warren Buffett

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

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

Our stay-put behavior reflects our view that the stock market serves as a relocation center at which money is moved from the active to the patient. ~Warren Buffett

Traditional wisdom is long on tradition and short on wisdom. ~Warren Buffett

We do not view the company itself as the ultimate owner of our business assets but instead view the company as a conduit through which our shareholders own assets. ~Warren Buffett

I've already written a section in the annual report for next year explaining why I think in one case that the figures on our balance sheet as calculated are wrong. But it's the standard way of doing it. It's holy writ. The SEC wants us to do it that way, and we'll do it that way, and I'll explain why I think it's wrong and shareholders can read it and see whether they agree with my logic or don't. ~Warren Buffett

If I got a chance to take one percent of the deal either way, I would make that bet. ~Warren Buffett

I mean, you may be very mad at some guy that walked away with a huge golden parachute, but that really isn't the important thing. ~Warren Buffett

If you buy the things you don't need, you will soon be selling the things that you need. ~Warren Buffett

You are lucky in life if you have the right heroes. I advise all of you, to the extent you can, to pick out a few heroes ~Warren Buffett

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. ~Warren Buffett

It's almost impossible to overpay the truly extraordinary CEO... but the species is rare. ~Warren Buffett

If I taught a class, on my final exam I would take an Internet company and ask, 'How much is this company worth?' Anyone who would answer, I would flunk. ~Warren Buffett

I want to be able to explain my mistakes. This means I do only the things I completely understand. ~Warren Buffett

I have always cautioned partners that I considered three years a minimum in determining whether we were "performing". ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I always say that in investing you want to buy stock in a company that has a business that's so good that an idiot can run it, because sooner or later one will. We have a country like that. ~Warren Buffett

I'm happy when I can spend every day doing the things that I like to do. That's my luxury. ~Warren Buffett

Like I say, I don't think it'll be done perfectly. Maybe we'll end up with a little bit better [economy] system. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

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

My favorite time frame for holding a stock is forever. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Read pages every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up like compound interest. ~Warren Buffett

The most dangerous distractions are the ones you love, but that don't love you back. ~Warren Buffett

But 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 $ trillion residential home market. Lending was done based on it, and everybody did a lot of foolish things. ~Warren Buffett

I may have more money than you, but money doesn't make the difference. If there is any difference between you and me, it may simply be that I get up and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day. If you learn anything from me, this is the best advice I can give you. ~Warren Buffett

The obligation of a society as prosperous as ours is to figure out how nobody gets left too far behind. ~Warren Buffett

You have to turn over a lot of rocks to find those little anomalies. You have to find the companies that are off the map - way off the map. ~Warren Buffett

What you really want to do in investments is figure out what's important and knowable. If it's unimportant or unknowable you forget about it. ~Warren Buffett

I think the biggest thing we need is to unclog the credit markets, and we may need another stimulus - if we do, it's - it should go to the lower and middle-income people. ~Warren Buffett

Investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. If you've got talents, no one can take them from you. ~Warren Buffett

You've got the right - you've got a wonderful person with Sheila Bair, most of the viewers have never heard of Sheila Bair. [She] has taken eight percent of the deposits in the United States and seamlessly moved those over to sound institutions which in turn have gotten more capital, ended up, it's been a magnificent job.She'll never get a golden parachute or any severance pay or anything. She's done a great job. We've got some great public servants. We have I think the right people in there to get the job done, and then they need more tools. ~Warren Buffett

Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can't buy what is popular and do well. ~Warren Buffett

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

When you build a bridge, you insist that it can carry , pounds, but you only drive ,-pound trucks across it. And that same principle works in investing. ~Warren Buffett

Economic medicine that was previously meted out by the cupful has recently been dispensed by the barrel. These once unthinkable dosages will almost certainly bring on unwelcome after-effects. Their precise nature is anyone's guess, though one likely consequence is an onslaught of inflation. ~Warren Buffett

If you expect to continue to purchase stocks throughout your life, you should welcome price declines as a way to add stocks more cheaply to your portfolio. ~Warren Buffett

Investing 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 ! U.S. Steel at ! 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 Buffett

I have a house that I bought years ago. It's warm in the winter; it's cool in the summer. It has everything I wanted, plus it has all kinds of good memories. Like my kids, I have good thoughts about that. I can't imagine living any better. ~Warren Buffett

I would rather sustain the penalties resulting from over-conservatism than face the consequences of error, perhaps with permanent capital loss, resulting from the adoption of "New Era" philosophy where trees really do grow to the sky. ~Warren Buffett

People went crazy with tulip bulbs. They went crazy with the South Sea Bubble, they went crazy internet stocks, they went crazy with the uranium stocks back when I was first getting started. ~Warren Buffett

In my view, [the trade deficit] will create political turmoil at some point...Pretty soon, I think there will be a big adjustment. ~Warren Buffett

My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. ~Warren Buffett

If you can tell me who your heroes are, I can tell you how you're going to turn out in life. ~Warren Buffett

Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. ~Warren Buffett

We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds. ~Warren Buffett

What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end. ~Warren Buffett

Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing. ~Warren Buffett

My job is essentially just corralling more and more and more facts and information, and occasionally seeing whether that leads to some action. ~Warren Buffett

A contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling. ~Warren Buffett

Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it. ~Warren Buffett

... 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. ~Warren Buffett

We all make mistakes. If you can't make mistakes, you can't make decisions. I've made a lot bigger mistakes myself. ~Warren Buffett

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote. ~Warren Buffett

I have worked with investors for years and I have yet to see anyone - not even when capital gains rates were . percent in - - shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. ~Warren Buffett

Enjoy your work and work for whom you admire. ~Warren Buffett

Charlie [Munger] and I are not big fans of resumes. Instead, we focus on brains, passion and integrity. ~Warren Buffett

Occasionally, a man must rise above principles. ~Warren Buffett

Of our billion, we haven't moved any to Bitcoin ~Warren Buffett

The capital gains tax is percent now. So I sit there in my office and I make a lot of money by capital gains, and I pay percent, and I pay no payroll tax on it. ~Warren Buffett

We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful. ~Warren Buffett

If you're an investor, you're looking on what the asset is going to do, if you're a speculator, you're commonly focusing on what the price of the object is going to do, and that's not our game. ~Warren Buffett

In 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 Buffett

More investment sins are probably committed by otherwise quite intelligent people because of "tax considerations" than from any other cause. One of my friends-a noted West Coast philosopher-maintains that a majority of life's errors are caused by forgetting what one is really trying to do. This is certainly the case when an emotionally supercharged element like taxes enters the picture (I have another friend-a noted East Coast philosopher who says it isn't the lack of representation he minds-it's the taxation). ~Warren Buffett

I made my first investment at age eleven. I was wasting my life up until then. ~Warren Buffett

Our favorite holding period is forever. ~Warren Buffett

The critical investment factor is determining the intrinsic value of a business and paying a fair or bargain price. ~Warren Buffett

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

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. I've never borrowed a significant amount of money in my life. Never. Never will. I've got no interest in it. The other reason is I never thought I would be way happier when I had X instead of X. You ought to have a good time all the time as you go along. ~Warren Buffett

I mean, if Pearl Harbor came along, you could have said the planning was wrong by the military ahead of time or maybe the battleships shouldn't have all been in the harbor and all that kind of thing. ~Warren Buffett

You get in a lot of trouble when you start putting fictitious numbers. ~Warren Buffett

You ought to be able to explain why you're taking the job you're taking, why you're making the investment you're making, or whatever it may be. And if it can't stand applying pencil to paper, you'd better think it through some more. And if you can't write an intelligent answer to those questions, don't do it. ~Warren Buffett

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

Risk is a part of God's game, alike for men and nations. ~Warren Buffett

We're still in a recession. We're not gonna be out of it for a while, but we will get out. ~Warren Buffett

In the financial markets I find it easy to predict what will happen and very difficult to predict when it will happen. I think that things were clear during the bubble as to what would happen eventually. ~Warren Buffett

I call investing the greatest business in the world... Because you never have to swing. ~Warren Buffett

You could take all the gold that's ever been mined, and it would fill a cube feet in each direction. For what that's worth at current gold prices, you could buy all -- not some -- all of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy Exxon Mobils, plus have $ trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take? Which is going to produce more value? ~Warren Buffett

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). ~Warren Buffett

You should invest like a Catholic marries: for life. ~Warren Buffett

What an investor needs is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that word "selected": You don't have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital. ~Warren Buffett

Investment philosophy is the clear understanding that by owning shares of stocks he owns businesses, not pieces of paper. ~Warren Buffett

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Anything can happen anytime in markets. And no advisor, economist, or TV commentator-and definitely not Charlie nor I-can tell you when chaos will occur. Market forecasters will fill your ear but will never fill your wallet. ~Warren Buffett

If you've got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, you've got a very good business. And if you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by a tenth of a cent, then you've got a terrible business. I've been in both, and I know the difference. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

It is madness to risk losing what you need in pursuing what you simply desire. ~Warren Buffett

What motivates most gold purchasers is their belief that the ranks of the fearful will grow ... As 'bandwagon' investors join any party, they create their own truth - for a while. ~Warren Buffett

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

Intensity is the price of excellence. ~Warren Buffett

I have a wonderful family. I have a job that I love and wonderful people who help me with it. It can't get any better than that. ~Warren Buffett

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield. ~Warren Buffett

[The U.S. Treasury] can borrow basically unlimited amounts. They can stay there for years and years. These assets will be worth more money over time. So when Merrill Lynch sells a bunch of mortgage-related assets at cents on the dollar like they did a month or so ago, the buyer goes - is going to make money, and he's going to make a lot more money if it happens to be an institution like the U.S. government which has very, very cheap borrowing costs. ~Warren Buffett

It is more important to say "no" to an opportunity, than to say "yes". ~Warren Buffett

I think that they hoped the private sector would come in. And the private sector tried to come in until they saw the size of the problem. I mean, from were people on that weekend that thought they'd had a solution. And then the hole kept getting bigger and bigger. And all of a sudden became apparent that billion wouldn't do it and billion wouldn't do it and billion wouldn't do it. So it got beyond anybody's ability to certainly to do it in a short period of time. ~Warren Buffett

In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable 'moats'. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

The true investor welcomes volatility ... a wildly fluctuating market means that irrationally low prices will periodically be attached to solid businesses. ~Warren Buffett

That would be nice if [people] stuck [treasury bills] all under a mattress, but they got to buy something with them. Sometimes they buy a treasury note, sometimes they set up sovereign wealth funds. They can do all kinds of things. They can buy our companies here. As long as we consume more than we produce, and we trade away little pieces of the country daily, they're going to own something. Now, they can't run from American assets. I mean every day the rest of the world is going to have about two billion more of American assets than we have, as long as they sell us these goods. ~Warren Buffett

They [Goverment] take from the woman who comes in and takes the wastebaskets out. ~Warren Buffett

This economy doesn't work well without the lubrication of credit and trust. ~Warren Buffett

I believe the chance of any event causing Berkshire to experience financial problems is essentially zero. We will always be prepared for the thousand-year flood; in fact, if it occurswe will be selling life jackets to the unprepared. ~Warren Buffett

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

You 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 Buffett

I just think that - when a country needs more income and we do, we're only taking in percent of GDP, I mean, that - that - when a country needs more income, they should get it from the people that have it. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Unfortunately, the hangover may prove to be proportional to the binge. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians. ~Warren Buffett

...I will give you two pieces of advice. Invest as much in yourself as you can; you are your own best asset by far. Then follow your passion; you want to be really excited to get out of bed every morning. ~Warren Buffett

Don't risk what is important to you, to get what is not important to you. ~Warren Buffett

The 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 Buffett

Beware of geeks bearing formulas. ~Warren Buffett

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

I tell college students, when you get to be my age you will be successful if the people who you hope to have love you, do love you. ~Warren Buffett

Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving. ~Warren Buffett

The power of unconditional love. I mean, there is no power on earth like unconditional love. ~Warren Buffett

[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head. ~Warren Buffett

Shares are not mere pieces of paper. They represent part ownership of a business. So, when contemplating an investment, think like a prospective owner. ~Warren Buffett

The greatest investment a young person can make is in their own education, in their own mind. Because money comes and goes. Relationships come and go. But what you learn once stays with you forever. ~Warren Buffett

Investors... can't pick stocks that are better than average. Stocks are a good thing to own over time. There's only two things you can do wrong: You can buy the wrong ones, and you can buy or sell them at the wrong time. And the truth is you never need to sell them. ~Warren Buffett

The real fortunes in this country have been made by people who have been right about the business they invested in, and not right about the timing of the stock market. ~Warren Buffett

Outstanding long-term results are produced primarily by avoiding dumb decisions, rather than by making brilliant ones. ~Warren Buffett

I certainly do believe anyone engaged in the management of money should have a standard of measurement, and that both he and the party whose money is managed should have a clear understanding why it is the appropriate standard, what time period should be utilized, etc. ~Warren Buffett

Money will always flow toward opportunity, and there is an abundance of that in America. ~Warren Buffett

Never ask a barber if you need a haircut. ~Warren Buffett

The one piece of advice I can give you is, do what turns you on. Do something that if you had all the money in the world, you'd still be doing it. You've got to have a reason to jump out of bed in the morning. ~Warren Buffett

The latter qualification brings to mind a fellow who applied for a job and stated he had twenty years of experience-which was corrected by a former employer to read "one year's experience-twenty times. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

We continue to make more money when snoring than when active. ~Warren Buffett

You have to turn over a lot of rocks to find those little anomalies. You have to find the companies that are off the map - way off the map. You may find local companies that have nothing wrong with them at all. A company that I found, Western Insurance Securities, was trading for $/share when it was earning $/share! I tried to buy up as much of it as possible. No one will tell you about these businesses. You have to find them. ~Warren Buffett

To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. You must supply the emotional discipline. ~Warren Buffett

Never do anything in life if you would be ashamed of seeing it printed on the front page of your hometown newspaper for your friends and family to see. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Invest in as much of yourself as you can, you are your own biggest asset by far. ~Warren Buffett

The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don't have to swing at everything – you can wait for your pitch. ~Warren Buffett

If you own a wonderful business...the best thing to do is keep it. All you're going to do is trade your wonderful business for a whole bunch of cash, which isn't as good as the business, and you got the problem of investing in other businesses, and you probably paid a tax in between. So my advice to anybody who owns a wonderful business is keep it. ~Warren Buffett

Wealth is having enough. That means to some people, no matter how much they have, they can't really be wealthy because they want more than they've got. ~Warren Buffett

If you do smart things and use leverage and do one wrong thing along the way, it could wipe you out, because anything times zero is zero. But it's reinforcing when the people around you are doing it successfully, you're doing it successfully, and it's a lot like Cinderella at the ball. ~Warren Buffett

The Noah rule: Predicting rain doesn't count; building arks does. ~Warren Buffett

The patient that's on the floor with the cardiac arrest is not Wall Street. It's the American economy. ~Warren Buffett

I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It cost a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's a fantastic brand loyalty. ~Warren Buffett

It's class warfare; my class is winning, but they shouldn't be. ~Warren Buffett

Charlie and I decided long ago that in an investment lifetime, it's too hard to make hundreds of smart decisions. That judgment became ever more compelling as Berkshire's capital mushroomed and the universe of investments that could significantly affect our results shrank dramatically. Therefore, we adopted a strategy that required our being smart and not too smart at that, only a very few times. Indeed, we now settle for one good idea a year. ~Warren Buffett

Failure comes from ego, greed, envy, fear, imitation. I have success not because I am smart, but because I am rational. ~Warren Buffett

The plan itself is opportunism. There is no plan before that. ~Warren Buffett

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

At age , I read a book [The Intelligent Investor] and what I'm doing today, at age , is running things through the same thought process I learned from the book I read at . ~Warren Buffett

I sent one e-mail in my life. I sent it to Jeff Raikes at Microsoft, and it ended up in court in Minneapolis, so I am one for one. ~Warren Buffett

Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the models. Beware of geeks bearing formulas. ~Warren Buffett

The 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 Buffett

Once negotiations begin, you can come down in your selling price or up in your buying price. But it's impossible to do the opposite. ~Warren Buffett

All day you wait for the pitch you like; then when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it. ~Warren Buffett

I choose to work with every single person that I work with. That ends up being the most important factor. I don't interact with people I don't like or admire. That's the key. It's like marrying. ~Warren Buffett

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

If you know how to value businesses, it's crazy to own stocks or stocks or stocks, probably because there aren't that many wonderful businesses understandable to a single human being in all likelihood. To forego buying more of some super-wonderful business and instead put your money into # or # on your list of attractiveness just strikes Charlie and me as madness. ~Warren Buffett

Bull markets and Bear markets can obscure mathematical laws, they cannot repeal them. ~Warren Buffett

It is better to point out your own mistakes than have somebody else do it. ~Warren Buffett

In a difficult business, no sooner is one problem solved than another surfaces - never is there just one cockroach in the kitchen. ~Warren Buffett

It is easier to rationalize than it is to be rational. ~Warren Buffett

Never depend on a single source of income. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Optimism.. is the enemy of the rational buyer ~Warren Buffett

Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. The person sitting in the shade now should be grateful for the person who planted and tended that tree. That includes all those benefactors of humanity throughout history that created, invented, financed, produced, maintained and improved all that we enjoy today. ~Warren Buffett

If you knew what was going to happen in the economy, you still wouldn't necessarily know what was going to happen in the stock market. ~Warren Buffett

I spend twelve hours a week - a little over % of my waking hours - playing the game. Now I am trying to figure out how to get by on less sleep in order to fit in a few more hands. ~Warren Buffett

I don't need houses. Owning real estate doesn't mean much to me. I don't like to think about things like that. I don't need boats, or even the world's largest boat with a crew of . I'd have to take care of them, to worry about them. I get a lot more fun out of life without all the bells and whistles. ~Warren Buffett

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves - and the better the teacher, the better the student body. ~Warren Buffett

If I subscribed to the efficient market theory I would still be delivering papers ~Warren Buffett

Writing a check separates a commitment from a conversation. ~Warren Buffett

It's easier to create money than to spend it. ~Warren Buffett

Does the business have a consistent operating history? ~Warren Buffett

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

We make investment decisions based on our evaluation of the most profitable combination of probabilities. ~Warren Buffett

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

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? ~Warren Buffett

When we really sit back with a smile on our face is when we run into a situation we can understand, where the facts are ascertainable and clear, and the course of action obvious. ~Warren Buffett

You do not adequately protect yourself by being half awake when other are sleeping. ~Warren Buffett

I've never been very fully employed either but just think of what it's like, you know, to go home with a mortgage payment you know and kids and everything else. My dad had that happen to him in the early 's. ~Warren Buffett

You know ... you keep doing the same things and you keep getting the same result over and over again. ~Warren Buffett

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

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. ~Warren Buffett

It takes years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently. ~Warren Buffett

Nevertheless, as circumstances presently appear, I feel substantially greater size is more likely to harm future results than to help them. This might not be true for my own personal results, but it is likely to be true for your results. ~Warren Buffett

They say the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. The chains you put around yourself now have enormous consequences as you go through life. ~Warren Buffett

We don't read other people's opinions. We want to get the facts, and then think. ~Warren Buffett

I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute. ~Warren Buffett

I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful. ~Warren Buffett

The big question about how people behave is whether they've got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard. ~Warren Buffett

It's a lot easier to buy things than it is to sell them. ~Warren Buffett

I understand Goldman Sachs businesses. We do lot of business with him, and GE has been - I think it's the longest running stock in the Dow Jones industrial average. It will be years now it will be around. I hope I'm around then, too. And it was an attractive investment. And we have had a lot of money around, over the last two years, and we're seeing things that are attractive now. ~Warren Buffett

If you're in a card game and you can't figure out who the patsy is, you're it. ~Warren Buffett

We need a tax system that essentially takes very good care of the people who just really aren't as well adapted to the market system but are nevertheless doing useful things in the society. ~Warren Buffett

Ignore the stock market, ignore the economy, and buy a business you understand. ~Warren Buffett

The same things happen to quite an extent around the globe. I mean, the European banks were doing what the American banks were. ~Warren Buffett

[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Market prices for stocks fluctuate at great amplitudes around intrinsic value but, over the long term, intrinsic value is virtually always reflected at some point in market price. ~Warren Buffett

Unless you can watch your stock holding decline by % without becoming panic-stricken, you should not be in the stock market. ~Warren Buffett

There are three important principles to Graham's approach. [The first is to look at stocks as fractional shares of a business, which] gives you an entirely different view than most people who are in the market. [The second principle is the margin-of-safety concept, which] gives you the competitive advantage. [The third is having a true investor's attitude toward the stock market, which] if you have that attitude, you start out ahead of percent of all the people who are operating in the stock market - it's an enormous advantage. ~Warren Buffett

[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). ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Trust is like the air we breathe--when it's present, nobody really notices; when it's absent, everybody notices. ~Warren Buffett

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

The most important investment you can make is in yourself. Very few people get anything like their potential horsepower translated into the actual horsepower of their output in life. Potential exceeds realization for many people...The best asset is your own self. You can become to an enormous degree the person you want to be. ~Warren Buffett

Ben's Mr. Market allegory may seem out-of-date in today's investment world, in which most professionals and academicians talk of efficient markets, dynamic hedging and betas. Their interest in such matters is understandable, since techniques shrouded in mystery clearly have value to the purveyor of investment advice. After all, what witch doctor has ever achieved fame and fortune by simply advising 'Take two aspirins'? ~Warren Buffett

Is management candid with the shareholders? ~Warren Buffett

The obligation of a society as prosperous as ours is to figure out how nobody gets left too far behind. ~Warren Buffett

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

Calculate "owner earnings" to get a true reflection of value. ~Warren Buffett

Do not put all your eggs in one basket. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Larger sums may be an advantage at some cases and a disadvantage at others. ~Warren Buffett

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

I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. ~Warren Buffett

If you've got a good enough business, if you have a monopoly newspaper, if you have a network television station - I'm talking of the past - you know, your idiot nephew could run it. And if you've got a really good business, it doesn't make any difference. ~Warren Buffett

We have learned to turn out lots of goods and services, but we haven't learned as well how to have everybody share in the bounty. The obligation of a society as prosperous as ours is to figure out how nobody gets left too far behind. ~Warren Buffett

I think any time you couple the term "Wall Street" with "bailout" or something like that, you know - I don't like what's going on in Wall Street. ~Warren Buffett

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

A prediction about the direction of the stock market tells you nothing about where stocks are headed, but a whole lot about the person doing the predicting. ~Warren Buffett

Investing requires qualities of temperament way more than it requires qualities of intellect. ~Warren Buffett

The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. ~Warren Buffett

There is no staff. I make all the investment decisions and I do all my own analysis. ~Warren Buffett

The Happiest people DO NOT necessarily have the BEST THINGS. They simply APPRECIATE the things they have. ~Warren Buffett

Would you rather be the world's greatest lover, but have everyone think you're the world's worst lover? Or would you rather be the world's worst lover but have everyone think you're the world's greatest lover? Now, that's an interesting question. ~Warren Buffett

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

It's just that I landed up in a terrific capitalist system. One that pays people who allocate capital extraordinarily well. Intrinsically, I'm not worth as much as somebody who invents something that could improves people's life, or health or whatever. ~Warren Buffett

Does the business have favourable long term prospects? ~Warren Buffett

We rarely use much debt and, when we do, we attempt to structure it on a long-term fixed rate basis. We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet. This conservatism has penalized our results but it is the only behavior that leaves us comfortable, considering our fiduciary obligations to policyholders, depositors, lenders and the many equity holders who have committed unusually large portions of their net worth to our care. ~Warren Buffett

We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff. ~Warren Buffett

I asked him what he wanted to do for his career, and he replied that he wanted to go into a particular field, but thought he should work for McKinsey for a few years first to add to his resume. To me that's like saving sex for your old age. It makes no sense. ~Warren Buffett

The best investment you can make, is an investment in yourself...The more you learn, the more you'll earn. ~Warren Buffett

You'd get very rich if you thought of yourself as having a card with only twenty punches in a lifetime, and every financial decision used up one punch. You'd resist the temptation to dabble. You'd make more good decisions and you'd make more big decisions. ~Warren Buffett

By periodically investing in an index fund, the know-nothing investors can actually outperform most investment professionals. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

Growth and value investing are joined at the hip. ~Warren Buffett

The typical large company has a compensation committee, They don't look for Dobermans on that committee, they look for chihuahuas. ~Warren Buffett

I'd rather have a $ million business making per cent than a $ million business making per cent. ~Warren Buffett

I bought a company in the mid-'s called Dexter Shoe and paid $ million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $ million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $ billion. But I've made lots of dumb decisions. That's part of the game. ~Warren Buffett

The 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 Buffett

Focus on return on equity, not earnings per share. ~Warren Buffett

Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. The calculation of intrinsic value, though, is not so simple. As our definition suggests, intrinsic value is an estimate rather than a precise figure, and it is additionally an estimate that must be changed if interest rates move or forecasts of future cash flows are revised. ~Warren Buffett

I make no effort to predict the course of general business or the stock market. Period. However, currently there are practices snowballing in the security markets and business world which, while devoid of short term predictive value, bother me as to possible long term consequences. ~Warren Buffett

Does management resist the institutional imperative? ~Warren Buffett

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 % of your net worth in that stock. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

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

Investment decision should be made on the basis of the most probable compounding of after-tax net worth with minimum risk. ~Warren Buffett

The 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 . No problem-at a price, you will easily find an obliging counterparty. ~Warren Buffett

To be successful, you should concentrate on the world of companies, not arcane accounting mathematics. ~Warren Buffett

I think you should read everything you can. In my case, by the age of , I'd read every book in the Omaha public library about investing, some twice. You need to fill your mind with various competing thoughts and decide which make sense. ~Warren Buffett

It's much easier to stay out of trouble now than to get out of trouble later. ~Warren Buffett

When people talk about cash being king, it's not king if it just sits there and never does anything. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

If the world couldn't see your results, would you rather be thought of as the world's greatest investor but in reality have the world's worst record? Or be thought of as the world's worst investor when you were actually the best? ~Warren Buffett

Yeah, 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 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 Buffett

Gold is a way of going long on fear, and it has been a pretty good way of going long on fear from time to time. But you really have to hope people become more afraid in a year or two years than they are now. And if they become more afraid you make money, if they become less afraid you lose money, but the gold itself doesn't produce anything. ~Warren Buffett

Most investors, both institutional and individual, will find that the best way to own common stocks (shares') is through an index fund that charges minimal fees. Those following this path are sure to beat the net results (after fees and expenses) of the great majority of investment professionals. ~Warren Buffett

A pin lies in wait for every bubble. And when the two eventually meet, a new wave of investors learns some very old lessons: First, many in Wall Street (a community in which quality control is not prized) will sell investors anything they will buy. Second, speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest ~Warren Buffett

Success is having people love you that you want to have love you. ~Warren Buffett

Is management rational? ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

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

If you lose money for the firm, I will be forgiving. If you lose reputation, I will be ruthless. ~Warren Buffett

You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in - in , we just didn't know it was uncertain. It was - uncertain on September th, . It was uncertain on October th, , you just didn't know it. ~Warren Buffett

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

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

The rest of the world really likes our stuff pretty well. It's just we buy so damn much of what they produce. ~Warren Buffett

Our system works. Over time, people will live better and better. We have a system that unleashes human potential, and now China has a system that unleashes human potential. We will have interruptions. We overshoot and undershoot sometimes, but your kids and grandkids will live better than you. Over time, we move ahead at a pretty damn rapid rate. ~Warren Buffett

Knowing what to leave out is just as important as knowing what to focus on. ~Warren Buffett

Either they're trying to con you or they're trying to con themselves. ~Warren Buffett

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

Business relationships are just like personal relationships— they are best started showing an interest in the other person, and in finding out what that person needs are, because ultimately we are selling to those needs. ~Warren Buffett

If 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 Buffett

Who would think of buying or selling a private business because of someone's guess on the stock market? The availability of a quotation for your business interest (stock) should always be an asset to be utilized if desired. If it gets silly enough in either direction, you take advantage of it. Its availability should never be turned into a livability whereby its periodic aberrations in turn formulate your judgements. ~Warren Buffett

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

Stocks are the only thing that people are happy to buy when the price goes up. ~Warren Buffett

Investors have to remember: corporate profits are going up, but stocks are going up faster. How can that continue indefinitely? Investors can only earn what companies themselves can earn; the government or the markets themselves don't kick anything in. How can you get anything more out of a farm than what it grows? ~Warren Buffett

I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy. ~Warren Buffett

An IPO is like a negotiated transaction - the seller chooses when to come public - and it's unlikely to be a time that's favourable to you. ~Warren Buffett

People do, as long as you have markets, you'll have excesses. ~Warren Buffett

Never depend on single income. Make investment to create a second source. ~Warren Buffett

I just don't see anything available that gives any reasonable hope of delivering such a good year and I have no desire to grope around, hoping to 'get lucky' with other people's money. I am not attuned to this market environment, and I don't want to spoil a decent record by trying to play a game I don't understand just so I can go out a hero. ~Warren Buffett

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

Everybody's got a different circle of competence. The important thing is not how big the circle is. The important thing is staying inside the circle. ~Warren Buffett

The single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power, ~Warren Buffett

Read Ben Graham and Phil Fisher read annual reports, but don't do equations with Greek letters in them. ~Warren Buffett

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

Investment students need only two well-taught courses - How to Value a Business and How to Think About Market Prices ~Warren Buffett

I don't look to jump over -foot bars: I look around for -foot bars that I can step over. ~Warren Buffett

If you gave me the choice of being CEO of General Electric or IBM or General Motors, you name it, or delivering papers, I would deliver papers. I would. I enjoyed doing that. I can think about what I want to think. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. ~Warren Buffett

I'm just lucky to have been in the right place at the right time. Another place, another time, I wouldn't have been as successful. Society enabled me to make my money and my money should go to society. ~Warren Buffett

That goes back to , although it was really implemented in ' under Jesse Jones, and it invested in mostly banks initially and preferred stock and that sort of thing. So there are two things needed in the system, the one that's needed overwhelmingly is liquidity. I mean, when people are trying to [unintelligible], there has to be somebody there to buy. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I have an [freephone] number now that I call if I get the urge to buy an airline stock. I call at two in the morning and I say: "My name is Warren and I'm an aeroholic." And then they talk me down. ~Warren Buffett

If you don't feel comfortable making a rough estimate of the asset's future earnings, just forget it and move on. No one has the ability to evaluate every investment possibility. But omniscience isn't necessary; you only need to understand the actions you undertake. ~Warren Buffett

The nature of democracy is such that when there's - there'll be revulsion, obviously, towards - that's never going to happen again. ~Warren Buffett

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

A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought. ~Warren Buffett

I'll take the deal, whatever you want to do. ~Warren Buffett

Valuing a business is part art and part science. ~Warren Buffett

I think that trying to invest through people is a tough job, you know, and so I would give more latitude. ~Warren Buffett

You need a lot of curiosity for a long, long time. ~Warren Buffett

The smartest side to take in a bidding war is the losing side. ~Warren Buffett

As an investor with small capital, one should prefer businesses that have high returns on capital and that require little incremental investment to grow. ~Warren Buffett

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

It's good to learn from your mistakes. It's better to learn from other people's mistakes. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

The time to buy stocks is consistently over time. You should never buy your investments with the idea, 'I have to get a certain return.' You should look at the best return possible and learn to live with that. But you should not try to make your investments earn what you feel you need. It doesn't work that way. The stock doesn't know you own it. ~Warren Buffett

If we have a strength, it is in recognizing when we are operating well within our circle of competence and when we are approaching the perimeter. ~Warren Buffett

All I have to do is think and not be influenced by others, ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

We believe that according the name 'investors' to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a 'romantic.' ~Warren Buffett

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. ~Warren Buffett

I'm putting all my money in the Chinese toy market. ~Warren Buffett

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. ~Warren Buffett

We've been in a recession, by any common sense definition, because if you look at the American public, they've got billion - trillion, I should say, worth of residential homes. ~Warren Buffett

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 Buffett

Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don't have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it's true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy." ~Warren Buffett

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

The key to life is to figure out who to be the batboy for. ~Warren Buffett

When bills come due, only cash is legal tender. Don't leave home without it. ~Warren Buffett

For some reason people take their cues from price action rather than from values. Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. ~Warren Buffett

If you can't read the scoreboard. You don't know the score. If you don't know the score, you can't tell the winners from the losers. ~Warren Buffett

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

I would push purchasing power - you push out $, of purchasing to those people, it's going to get - it's going to get spent. And it needs to be spent. They need it. And it should come, to some extent, from guys like me. ~Warren Buffett

Successful Investing takes time, discipline and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. ~Warren Buffett

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

I prefer liquor store robbers with hungry kids to companies that locate offshore to avoid U.S. taxes. ~Warren Buffett

In investing, just as in baseball, to put runs on the scoreboard, one must watch the playing field, not the scoreboard. ~Warren Buffett

So 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 Buffett

During inflation, Goodwill is the gift that keeps on giving. ~Warren Buffett

Mr. Market is your servant, not your guide. ~Warren Buffett

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