Warren Buffett Men Quotations

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

Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist.

Does management resist the institutional imperative?

Is management candid with the shareholders?

Is management rational?

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

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.

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.

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies.

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

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.

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.

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 2020. No problem-at a price, you will easily find an obliging counterparty.

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

What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.

Writing a check separates a commitment from a conversation.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The best investment you can make is in yourself

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.

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

It takes 150 years to build an investment bank and only five minutes to convince you to sell me preferred stock in it at a 10% interest rate.

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.

Occasionally, a man must rise above principles.

During inflation, Goodwill is the gift that keeps on giving.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Very successful people say no to almost everything.

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

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

If you can eliminate the government as a 39.6% partner, then you will be much better off.

Despite the lack of precedent, a negative coupon security seemed possible in the present interest rate environment ... I asked Goldman Sachs to create such an instrument and they responded promptly with the innovative security being announced today.

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.

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.

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

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?

If you don't know the Jewelry, know the Jeweller

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

As an investor with small capital, one should prefer businesses that have high returns on capital and that require little incremental investment to grow.

Just look at that Forbes 400. Takes a billion three to get on the Forbes 400 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 400 who challenges - me that the average for the Forbes 400 will be less than the average of their receptionists.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Activity is the enemy of investment returns.

The wise man once said invest young

Do not put all your eggs in one basket.

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.

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