Buffett Top Quotes

This is how top investor Warren Buffett does things: “Each deal we measure against the second-best deal that is available at any given time—even if it means doing more of what we are already doing.

If you see somebody with even reasonable intelligence and a terrific passion for what they do and who can get people around them to march, even when those people can't see over the top of the next hill, things are gonna happen

Goldman’s top four officers could not sell more than 10 percent of their Goldman shares until 2011, or until Buffett sold his own, even if they left the firm. He had explained his rationale for this condition to Blankfein by saying, “If I’m buying the horse, I’m buying the jockey, too.

Living frugally even when you can afford to live luxurious will not only help you to save money. It will also help you to realize what is truly important in life. The secret that Warren Buffett knows is that money truly cannot buy you happiness. It can buy you a sense of security and it can open many doors for you. However, happiness comes from being engaged in fulfilling work; from strengthening your relationships with those who are most important to you; from doing those things that make you happy.

Many security analysts still believe that agencies are a poor investment. Not so Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors in the world. He has taken substantial positions in three publicly held agencies, and is quoted as saying, ‘The best business is a royalty on the growth of others, requiring very little capital itself … such as the top international advertising agencies.’ If

Dimon was in his best Warren Buffett–inspired investor communication style: full, open disclosure, underscoring the risks involved, but also articulating the philosophy and reasons behind his decisions.

Nancy Peretsman of Allen & Co., a top Wall Street banker and a specialist in internet and media deals. Buffett was high on Peretsman, who had been a budding star at Salomon Brothers, the investment bank in which he was a large investor, before she joined forces with Herbert Allen. It was Peretsman who placed the first call to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, a casual friend of Graham’s for 15 years, to tell him the Post was for sale.

As Charlie Munger has said, “I think I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort almost my entire adult life in understanding the power of incentives, and yet I’ve always underestimated that power. Never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes a little further my appreciation of incentive superpower.” An example from FedEx is one of his favorite cases in point. As he explains, the integrity of the FedEx system relies heavily on the ability to unload and then quickly reload packages at one central location within an allotted time. Years ago, the company was having a terrible problem getting its workers to get all the boxes off and then back on the planes in time. They tried numerous different things that didn’t work, until someone had the brilliant idea of paying the workers by the shift as opposed to by the hour. Poof, the problem was solved.2 FedEx’s old pay-by-the-hour system rewarded those who took longer to get the job done. They were incentivized to take longer. By switching to pay-by-the-shift, workers were motivated to work faster and without error so they could go home, yet still earn the wages of a full shift. For the workers, finishing early amounted to a higher effective hourly wage. By aligning the business’s interests with the worker’s incentives, FedEx got the outcome it and its workers both desired. The

When it comes to investing, it’s critical not to “force it.” Markets will cycle. There will be times when you too feel “out of step” with the market, just as Buffett did in the late 1960s. You’ll find that during the late bull market mania of the Go-Go years, his standards remained firmly set, while the pressure to perform caused the standards of many of even the best around him to crumble. It’s hard not to cave your principles in at the top of the cycle when your value approach has apparently stopped working and everyone around you seems to be making money easily (that’s why so many people do it). However, it’s more often than not a “buy high, sell low” strategy. Buffett set his plan, established his standards, and then entered the fray, maintaining the courage of his convictions, come what may.

The third principle is to resist the allure of middling priorities. There is a story attributed to Warren Buffett—although probably only in the apocryphal way in which wise insights get attributed to Albert Einstein or the Buddha, regardless of their real source—in which the famously shrewd investor is asked by his personal pilot about how to set priorities. I’d be tempted to respond, “Just focus on flying the plane!” But apparently this didn’t take place midflight, because Buffett’s advice is different: he tells the man to make a list of the top twenty-five things he wants out of life and then to arrange them in order, from the most important to the least. The top five, Buffett says, should be those around which he organizes his time. But contrary to what the pilot might have been expecting to hear, the remaining twenty, Buffett allegedly explains, aren’t the second-tier priorities to which he should turn when he gets the chance. Far from it. In fact, they’re the ones he should actively avoid at all costs—because they’re the ambitions insufficiently important to him to form the core of his life yet seductive enough to distract him from the ones that matter most. You needn’t embrace the specific practice of listing out your goals (I don’t, personally) to appreciate the underlying point, which is that in a world of too many big rocks, it’s the moderately appealing ones—the fairly interesting job opportunity, the semi-enjoyable friendship—on which a finite life can come to grief. It’s a self-help cliché that most of us need to get better at learning to say no. But as the writer Elizabeth Gilbert points out, it’s all too easy to assume that this merely entails finding the courage to decline various tedious things you never wanted to do in the first place. In fact, she explains, “it’s much harder than that. You need to learn how to start saying no to things you do want to do, with the recognition that you have only one life.

If our noneconomic values were to be lost, much of Berkshire’s economic value would collapse as well. “Tone at the top” will be key to maintaining Berkshire’s special culture.

make a list of the top twenty-five things he wants out of life and then to arrange them in order, from the most important to the least. The top five, Buffett says, should be those around which he organizes his time. But contrary to what the pilot might have been expecting to hear, the remaining twenty, Buffett allegedly explains, aren’t the second-tier priorities to which he should turn when he gets the chance. Far from it. In fact, they’re the ones he should actively avoid at all costs—because they’re the ambitions insufficiently important to him to form the core of his life yet seductive enough to distract him from the ones that matter most.

there was still one provision that troubled the group, a provision that Buffett had indicated would be a deal breaker: Goldman’s top four officers could not sell more than 10 percent of their Goldman shares until 2011, or until Buffett sold his own, even if they left the firm.

it's rather interesting because one of the greatest economists of the world is a substantial shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway and has been from the very early days after Buffett was in control. His textbook always taught that the stock market was perfectly efficient and that nobody could beat it.But his own money went into Berkshire and made him wealthy. So, like Pascal in his famous wager, he hedged his bet.The iron rule of life is that only twenty percent of the people can be in the top fifth Is the stock market so efficient that people can't beat it? Well, the efficient market theory is obviously roughly right-meaning that markets are quite efficient and it's quite hard for anybody to beat the market by significant margins as a stock picker by just being intelligent and working in a disciplined way.Indeed, the average result has to be the average result. By definition, everybody can't beat the market.

The third principle is to resist the allure of middling priorities. There is a story attributed to Warren Buffett—although probably only in the apocryphal way in which wise insights get attributed to Albert Einstein or the Buddha, regardless of their real source—in which the famously shrewd investor is asked by his personal pilot about how to set priorities. I’d be tempted to respond, “Just focus on flying the plane!” But apparently this didn’t take place midflight, because Buffett’s advice is different: he tells the man to make a list of the top twenty-five things he wants out of life and then to arrange them in order, from the most important to the least. The top five, Buffett says, should be those around which he organizes his time. But contrary to what the pilot might have been expecting to hear, the remaining twenty, Buffett allegedly explains, aren’t the second-tier priorities to which he should turn when he gets the chance. Far from it. In fact, they’re the ones he should actively avoid at all costs—because they’re the ambitions insufficiently important to him to form the core of his life yet seductive enough to distract him from the ones that matter most.

Cooperages typically specialized in one or the other because they each had different customer bases and wood requirements. They were often located in major towns to be close to their customers. Slack cooperage demand was more fragmented than tight cooperage, and therefore had a more diverse customer base. While most of the industry was tight cooperage, Greif focused on slack, with the company having the most slack capacity of any player. The cooperage industry had grown increasingly concentrated over time, with the top four companies’ share of total production increasing from 26% in 1935 to 47% in 1947.66 John Raible acquired control of the company from the Greif brothers in 1913. Raible was a wealthy investor, not terribly interested in the cooperage business. But his leadership was valuable, helping the company grow revenue from $1 million when he took over to $10 million when he took Greif public in 1926. But Raible’s reign came to an end in 1947, undone by a fellow board member. John Dempsey, an accountant in his early 30s, had joined the firm as a director and company secretary in 1946. After Raible tried to buy shares held by Dempsey’s wife and mother-in-law at a price the young accountant thought too cheap, Dempsey accumulated enough voting shares to take control of the company. Dempsey, claiming to be motivated by Raible calling Greif ‘my wood company,’ purchased over 50% of the voting shares and made himself chairman.67

You gotta know when to hold em’ and you gotta know when to fold em’!

Finance was the leading industry to which government opened the growth gates, as it had done previously for manufacturing, railways, suburban housing, and advanced technology. Beginning seriously in the 1980s, government deliberately, piece by piece, dismantled the regulatory structure that had tamed finance into something of a utility. And as in the past, entrepreneurs rushed in and innovated. The lucrative innovations ranged from collateralized debt obligations (CDOs—called by Warren Buffett “financial weapons of mass destruction”) and the like, on through high-speed trading (to us, a robotized cousin of front-running).4 The increase of the weight of finance in America’s GDP came about not so much by increasing the numbers of those employed in the sector, but by increasing the take of those high up in the industry. During the 1970s, average pay in finance was roughly the same as in most other industries; by 2002, it was double.5 The legions of clerks and tellers remained poorly paid; the gain went to the top, most of it to the top of the top. By 2005, finance accounted for a full 40 percent of all corporate profits. And many of the very most lucrative parts of finance—hedge funds, private equity partnerships, venture partnerships—were not structured and therefore not counted as corporations. Along with the accountants and consultants, add to this profit-making machine the Wall Street law firms that are part and parcel of finance, although they do not count as finance, but rather as business services. Finance got considerably more than 40 percent.

Materialism in Moderation: The Minimalist Lifestyle of Warren Buffett     This is the home in Omaha that Warren Buffett purchased for $31,500 back in 1957 before he earned his status as a millionaire. This is also the home that Warren Buffett still lives in today, despite his additional wealth.

Once a bull market gets under way, and once you reach the point where everybody has made money no matter what system he or she followed, a crowd is attracted into the game that is responding not to interest rates and profits but simply to the fact that it seems a mistake to be out of stocks. In effect, these people superimpose an I-can’t-miss-the-party factor on top of the fundamental factors that drive the market. Like Pavlov’s dog, these “investors” learn that when the bell rings—in this case, the one that opens the New York Stock Exchange at 9:30 A.M.—they get fed. Through this daily reinforcement, they become convinced that there is a God and that He wants them to get rich.

The second-richest man in America, Warren Buffett, says one of his biggest challenges is to help his top people—all wealthy beyond belief—stay interested enough to jump out of bed in the morning and work with all the enthusiasm they did when they were poor and just getting started.

he tells the man to make a list of the top twenty-five things he wants out of life and then to arrange them in order, from the most important to the least. The top five, Buffett says, should be those around which he organizes his time.

The third principle is to resist the allure of middling priorities. There is a story attributed to Warren Buffett—although probably only in the apocryphal way in which wise insights get attributed to Albert Einstein or the Buddha, regardless of their real source—in which the famously shrewd investor is asked by his personal pilot about how to set priorities. I’d be tempted to respond, “Just focus on flying the plane!” But apparently this didn’t take place midflight, because Buffett’s advice is different: he tells the man to make a list of the top twenty-five things he wants out of life and then to arrange them in order, from the most important to the least. The top five, Buffett says, should be those around which he organizes his time. But contrary to what the pilot might have

It’s much harder to piece together every investment he’s made over his career. No one talks about the dud picks, the ugly businesses, the poor acquisitions. But they’re a big part of Buffett’s story. They are the other side of tail-driven returns. At the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in 2013 Warren Buffett said he’s owned 400 to 500 stocks during his life and made most of his money on 10 of them. Charlie Munger followed up: “If you remove just a few of Berkshire’s top investments, its long-term track record is pretty average.

Ben is now 75 and, like Gene Abegg, 81, at Illinois National and Louie Vincenti, 73, at Wesco, continues daily to bring an almost passionately proprietary attitude to the business.  This group of top managers must appear to an outsider to be an overreaction on our part to an OEO bulletin on age discrimination.  While unorthodox, these relationships have been exceptionally rewarding, both financially and personally.  It is a real pleasure to work with managers who enjoy coming to work each morning and, once there, instinctively and unerringly think like owners.  We are associated with some of the very best.

The top five, Buffett says, should be those around which he organizes his time. But contrary to what the pilot might have been expecting to hear, the remaining twenty, Buffett allegedly explains, aren’t the second-tier priorities to which he should turn when he gets the chance. Far from it. In fact, they’re the ones he should actively avoid at all costs—

If you are not happy being in the top one tenth of one percent wealthiest people on earth, being in the top one hundreth of one percent isn't going to do anything for you.

I’d long opposed my predecessor’s signature domestic legislation, laws passed in 2001 and 2003 that changed the U.S. tax code in ways that disproportionately benefited high-net-worth individuals while accelerating the trend of wealth and income inequality. Warren Buffett liked to point out that the law enabled him to pay taxes at a significantly lower rate—proportionate to his income, which came almost entirely from capital gains and dividends—than his secretary did on her salary. The laws’ changes to the estate tax alone had reduced the tax burden for the top 2 percent of America’s richest families by more than $ 130 billion.

The Buffett Foundation remains a top supporter of Planned Parenthood and other groups that back abortion access, as it was when the senior Susie ran it. Yet now it’s writing even bigger checks. One of its largest impacts has been around contraception, where the foundation has played a key role in battling unwanted pregnancies by helping bankroll new birth control options. Its grants have helped revolutionize the use of IUDs, a long-acting form of contraception. A reason that IUDs are so effective is because, once these tiny T-shaped devices are inserted into the uterus, there’s no room for user error. The Buffett Foundation invested heavily both in research to improve IUDs and programs to spread their use. “Quietly, steadily, the Buffett family is funding the biggest shift in birth control in a generation,” according to one media account.

At Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in 2013 Warren Buffett said he's own 400 to 500 stocks during his life and made most of his money on 10 of them. Charlie Munger followed up: "If you remove just a few of Berkshire's top investments, its long-term track record is pretty average.

The seemingly random events of Brexit, Trump, and a rise in populism and hate in our world are not haphazard or isolated at all. They are all connected to a loss in hope for a better future for large portions of the population. Underlying this loss of hope is a new economic reality where it’s not just the poor who are missing out on economic gains. Much of the middle class is also feeling squeezed. Instead of technology allowing for a fifteen-hour work week, as Keynes predicted when he penned his 1930s essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” vast numbers of people are working longer, in jobs they rightly fear will soon be gone. Trapped—wondering how they will provide for their families and basic needs when the other shoe drops. At the same time, we are seeing a massive rise in inequality: in the United States, the top 5 percent of the population now holds more than two-thirds of the wealth, while the remaining 95 percent of the population fights for their share of the other third.1 Just three people—Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett—account for more wealth than 50 percent of the population.

Warren Buffett’s top two rules of investing? Rule 1: don’t lose money! Rule 2: see rule 1.