Warren Buffett People Quotations

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

You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in - in 2007, we just didn't know it was uncertain. It was - uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn't know it.

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.

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.

There are 309 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.

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.

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.

I think it is a marvelous way to keep directors' interests and shareholders interests as closely aligned as possible, with both an upside and a downside component. Too often, people talk about interests being aligned when the directors get the upside and shareholders get the downside.

An educational approach to money and investing struck me as a very good idea. People do form behavior habits very young on matters of money. I get calls every day from people who are in a financial hole.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Success is having people love you that you want to have love you.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It's good to learn from your mistakes. It's better to learn from other people's mistakes.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

For some reason people take their cues from price action rather than from values. Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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).

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).

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Very successful people say no to almost everything.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Always associate yourself with people who are better than you.

I would say that life at 84, 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.

Stocks are the only thing that people are happy to buy when the price goes up.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Success in investing doesn’t correlate with I.Q. Once you are above the level of 25; once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.

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

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

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

[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.

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.

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

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