

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.

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

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.

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

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

The plan itself is opportunism. There is no plan before that.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.

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?

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.

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.

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.

You should look at stocks as small pieces of business.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

If you don't make mistakes you can't make decisions.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

If you have a harem of 40 women, you never get to know any of them very well.

Buy stocks like you buy your groceries, not like you buy your perfume.

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

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

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.

The secret to happiness is having low expectations.

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.

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

There are three kinds of people: 1. Innovators. 2. Imitators. 3. Idiots.

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.

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

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

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.'

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power.
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