Inspirational Quotes by Warren Buffett (Page 2 of 4)

Share... | See all 16 versions
If I subscribed to the efficient market theory I would still be delivering papers.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.
Longer Version:
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
You don't need to have extraordinary effort to achieve extraordinary results. You just need to do the ordinary, everyday things exceptionally well.

Share... | See all 9 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
I mean Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't -- you know, when he came in, he didn't print any money.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Do not take yearly results too seriously. Instead, focus on four or five-year averages.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 3 versions
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.

Share... | See all 4 versions
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.

Share... | See all 9 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
If you are a professional and have confidence, then I would advocate lots of concentration.

Share... | See all 3 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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 10 years -you'll do better than 90% of people who start investing at the same time.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 3 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
By periodically investing in an index fund, the know-nothing investors can actually outperform most investment professionals.

Share... | See all 16 versions
You get what I call the natural progression, the three Is. The innovators, the imitators, and the idiots.

Share... | See all 3 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The critical investment factor is determining the intrinsic value of a business and paying a fair or bargain price.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Buy into a company because you want to own it, not because you want the stock to go up.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Our approach is very much profiting from lack of change rather than from change.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies.
Longer Version:
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.

Share... | See all 15 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 4 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
John Maynard Keynes essentially said, don't try and figure out what the market is doing. Figure out a business you understand, and concentrate.

Share... | See all 16 versions
We have embraced the 21st century by entering such cutting-edge industries as brick, carpet, insulation and paint. Try to control your excitement.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Just imagine living on 21,000 a year. I mean you have 20 percent of the population doing that. So you don't have to worry about guys like me.

Share... | See all 4 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
This economy doesn't work well without the lubrication of credit and trust.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
I measure success by how many people love me. And the best way to be loved is to be lo veable.

Share... | See all 3 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
I want to be able to explain my mistakes. This means I do only the things I completely understand.

Share... | See all 3 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
He must never forget Charlie's plea: Tell me where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there.

Share... | See all 16 versions
When people tell me they've learned from experience, I tell them the trick is to learn from other people's experience.

Share... | See all 9 versions
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.

Share... | See all 3 versions
The great personal fortunes in the country weren't built on a portfolio of fifty companies. They were built by someone who identified one wonderful business. With each investment you make, you should have the courage and the conviction to place at least 10% of your net worth in that stock.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
You do not adequately protect yourself by being half awake when other are sleeping.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.
Longer Version:
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.

Share... | See all 16 versions
We've been in a recession, by any common sense definition, because if you look at the American public, they've got 20 billion -- 20 trillion, I should say, worth of residential homes.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
It's the deleveraging that's going on right now that has caused the credit crisis.

Share... | See all 16 versions
It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.

Share... | See all 9 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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?

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
In the insurance business, there is no statute of limitation on stupidity.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they're doing.

Share... | See all 16 versions
People will always try to stop you from doing the right thing if it is unconventional.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 3 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
It's us fun being a horse when the tractor comes along, or the blacksmith when the car comes along.

Share... | See all 4 versions
When 40 billion of treasury bills are sold like, seven day treasury bills, at a yield of 1 20th 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.

Share... | See all 9 versions
At this point, when treasury bills, seven day treasury bills at 1 20th of one percent, it's not because people want to earn 1 20th of one percent, it's because they trust the fact the treasury will give it back to them next week.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 3 versions
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.

Share... | See all 4 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
In our view, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction carrying dangers that, while latent, are potentially lethal.

Share... | See all 7 versions
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.

Share... | See all 4 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Knowing the edge of your competency is important. If you think you know more than you do, you will get in trouble.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
You pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
If you have a harem of 40 women, you never get to know any of them very well.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Buy stocks like you buy your groceries, not like you buy your perfume.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Having first rate people on the team is more important than designing hierarchies and clarifying who reports to whom.

Share... | See all 16 versions
I mean, you know, you're not going to change the human animal. And the human animal really doesn't get a lot smarter.

Share... | See all 16 versions
We've seen what can be accomplished when we use 50% of our human capacity. If you visualize what 100% can do, you'll join me as an unbridled optimist about America's future.

Share... | See all 4 versions
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.

Share... | See all 3 versions
But 300 million Americans, their lending institutions, their government, their media, all believed that house prices were going to go up consistently. And that got billed into a $20 trillion residential home market. Lending was done based on it, and everybody did a lot of foolish things.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
In my view, the trade deficit will create political turmoil at some point...Pretty soon, I think there will be a big adjustment.

Share... | See all 7 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
There are three kinds of people: 1. Innovators. 2. Imitators. 3. Idiots.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
I think I could make you fifty percent a year on one million dollars. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.

Share... | See all 16 versions
What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.'

Share... | See all 4 versions
An irresistable footnote: in 1971, pension fund managers invested a record 122% of net funds available in equities -- at full prices they couldn't buy enough of them. In 1974, after the bottom had fallen out, they committed a then record low of 21% to stocks.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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 OK.

Share... | See all 16 versions
When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night's sleep for the chance of extra profits.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The capital gains tax is 15 percent now. So I sit there in my office and I make a lot of money by capital gains, and I pay 15 percent, and I pay no payroll tax on it.

Share... | See all 9 versions
We're paying maybe 25 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.

Share... | See all 3 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Buy companies with strong histories of profitability and with a dominant business franchise.

Share... | See all 16 versions
When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The nature of democracy is such that when there's -- there'll be revulsion, obviously, towards -- that's never going to happen again.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power.
Quotes by Warren Buffett are featured in:
Change Quotes
Funny Quotes
Inspirational Quotes
Money Quotes
Simplicity Quotes
Time Quotes
Success Quotes