Richer Wiser Happier Quotes

Who you spend your time with is probably the most important thing in life,

There are four things that we know improve brain health and brain function,” says Shubin Stein. “Meditation, exercise, sleep, and nutrition.

Devil’s advocate reviews. Premortems. Conversations with a skeptical discussion partner. A cognitive checklist that reminds us of our biggest biases and our past mistakes.

Buffett charged no annual management fee but collected a performance fee of 25 percent of any profits over an annual “hurdle” of 6 percent. If he made a return of 6 percent or less, he didn’t get paid a dime.

If all you succeed in doing in life is getting rich by buying little pieces of paper, it’s a failed life. Life is more than being shrewd in wealth accumulation. —Charlie Munger

You get a lot of A’s and B’s in school. In the stock market, you get a lot of F’s. And if you’re right six or seven times out of ten, you’re very good.

All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

It’s frightening to think that you might not know something, but more frightening to think that, by and large, the world is run by people who have faith that they know exactly what’s going on.

Inspired in part by Steinhardt, Nygren conducts a “devil’s advocate review” before buying any stock. One analyst on his team presents the bullish case. Another is tasked with “putting together the strongest bearish case.… By better understanding what we’re betting against, we’re more likely to make the right decision.

I could lose all my money, and I could still go to these files and say, ‘Well, it’s not like I lived my life for nothing. Look at the people whose lives I’ve changed.’ ” Van Den Berg points to his trove of letters and says, “That’s my bank account.

If you’re going to be in this game for the long pull, which is the way to do it, you better be able to handle a fifty percent decline without fussing too much about it. And so my lesson to all of you is, conduct your life so that you can handle the fifty percent decline with aplomb and grace. Don’t try to avoid it. It will come. In fact, I would say if it doesn’t come, you’re not being aggressive enough.

If you just go around and identify all of the disasters and say, ‘What caused that?’ and try to avoid it, it turns out to be a very simple way to find opportunities and avoid troubles.

Another common mistake that tilts the odds against many unsuspecting investors is to pay lavish fees to mediocre fund managers, stockbrokers, and financial advisers whose performance doesn’t justify the expense.

Do we still expect spouses to exert a moral influence upon each other? The notion that husband and wife should make each other better people does not resonate with the most visible goals of contemporary American society. How many young people marry with the conscious expectation that they will become kinder and wiser by virtue of choosing a decent, generous mate? Happier, richer, more successful. Yes! But better human beings?

Munger has also learned to control certain toxic emotions that would corrode his enjoyment of life. “Crazy anger. Crazy resentment. Avoid all that stuff,” he tells me. “I don’t let it run. I don’t let it start.” The same goes for envy, which he considers the dumbest of the seven deadly sins because it’s not even fun. He also disdains the tendency to view oneself as a victim, and he has no patience for whining. When I ask if he has a mental process that helps him to defuse self-defeating emotions, he replies, “I know that anger is stupid. I know that resentment is stupid. I know self-pity is stupid. So I don’t do them.… I’m trying not to be stupid every day, all day.

A partner who is not subservient and who himself is extremely logical . . . is probably the best mechanism you can have.” Munger, the ideal foil, has shot down so many investment ideas that Buffett refers to him as “The Abominable No-Man.

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life. Think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”XI

Once he felt “completely secure” about his financial future, no amount of money he could earn would make any difference to him. “I’m the richest guy in the world because I’m content with what I have,” says Van Den Berg. “I feel wealthier not because I have more money but because I’ve got health, good friendships, I’ve got a great family. Prosperity takes all of these things into consideration: health, wealth, happiness, peace of mind. That’s what a prosperous person is, not just a lot of money. That doesn’t mean anything.

I don’t have any wonderful insights that other people don’t have. I just have slightly more consistently than others avoided idiocy. Other people are trying to be smart. All I’m trying to be is non-idiotic. I find that all you have to do to get ahead in life is to be non-idiotic and live a long time. It’s harder to be non-idiotic than most people think.

Similarly, if you’re looking to make a thoughtful investment in a well-managed fund, you might start by asking, “How can I invest blindly in a lousy fund that’s a disaster waiting to happen?” That question would lead you to list all of the pitfalls that investors routinely overlook—for example, outrageous fees, dangerous exposure to the most popular and priciest sectors of the market, and a recent streak of head-spinning returns that will almost surely prove unsustainable

Instead of trotting out the usual bland platitudes about the secrets of success and happiness, he provided an inspired illustration of how to apply the principle of inversion. He gave the students a series of “prescriptions for guaranteed misery in life,” recommending that they should be unreliable, avoid compromise, harbor resentments, seek revenge, indulge in envy, “ingest chemicals,” become addicted to alcohol, neglect to “learn vicariously from the good and bad experience of others,” cling defiantly to their existing beliefs, and “stay down” when struck by the “first, second, or third severe reverse in the battle of life.

The Art of Subtraction If there is one habit that all of the investors in this chapter have in common, it’s this: They focus almost exclusively on what they’re best at and what matters most to them. Their success derives from this fierce insistence on concentrating deeply in a relatively narrow area while disregarding countless distractions that could interfere with their pursuit of excellence. Jason Zweig, an old friend who is a personal finance columnist at the Wall Street Journal and the editor of a revised edition of The Intelligent Investor, once wrote to me, “Think of Munger and Miller and Buffett: guys who just won’t spend a minute of time or an iota of mental energy doing or thinking about anything that doesn’t make them better. . . . Their skill is self-honesty. They don’t lie to themselves about what they are and aren’t good at. Being honest with yourself like that has to be part of the secret. It’s so hard and so painful to do, but so important.

among the young, a portent of the world’s future. Hate crimes, violence against women, and the victimization of children are all in long-term decline, as is the exploitation of children for their labor. As people are getting healthier, richer, safer, and freer, they are also becoming more literate, knowledgeable, and smarter. Early in the 19th century, 12 percent of the world could read and write; today 83 percent can. Literacy and the education it enables will soon be universal, for girls as well as boys. The schooling, together with health and wealth, are literally making us smarter—by thirty IQ points, or two standard deviations above our ancestors. People are putting their longer, healthier, safer, freer, richer, and wiser lives to good use. Americans work 22 fewer hours a week than they used to, have three weeks of paid vacation, lose 43 fewer hours to housework, and spend just a third of their paycheck on necessities rather than five-eighths. They are using their leisure and disposable income to travel, spend time with their children, connect with loved ones, and sample the world’s cuisine, knowledge, and culture. As a result of these gifts, people worldwide have become happier. Even Americans, who take their good fortune for granted, are “pretty happy” or happier, and the younger generations are becoming less unhappy, lonely, depressed, drug-addicted, and suicidal. As societies have become healthier, wealthier, freer, happier, and better educated, they have set their sights on the most pressing global challenges. They have emitted fewer pollutants, cleared fewer forests, spilled less oil,

There is no God, and man is his prophet," replied Niels bitterly and rather sadly. "Exactly," scoffed Hjerrild. "After all, atheism is unspeakably tame. Its end and aim is nothing but a disillusioned humanity. The belief in a God who rules everything and judges everything is humanity's last great illusion, and when that is gone, what then? Then you are wiser; but richer, happier? I can't see it." "But don't you see," exclaimed Niels Lyhne, "that on the day when men are free to exult and say: 'There is no God!' on that day a new heaven and a new earth will be created as if by magic. Then and not till then will heaven be a free infinite space instead of a spying, threatening eye. Then the earth will be ours and we the earth's, when the dim world of bliss or damnation beyond has burst like a bubble. The earth will be our true mother country, the home of our hearts, where we dwell, not as strangers and wayfarers a short time, but all our time. Think what intensity it will give to life, when everything must be concentrated within it and nothing left for a hereafter. The immense stream of love that is now rising up to the God of men's faith will bend to earth again and flow lovingly among all those beautiful human virtues with which we have endowed and embellished the godhead in order to make it worthy of our love. Goodness, justice, wisdom--who can name them all? Don't you see what nobility it will give men when they are free to live their life and die their death, without fear of hell or hope of heaven, but fearing themselves, hoping for themselves? How their consciences will grow, and what a strength it will give them when inactive repentance and humility cannot atone any more, when no forgiveness is possible except to redeem with good what they sinned with evil.

They sought to answer such questions as What is the intended destination for this business in ten or twenty years? What must management be doing today to raise the probability of arriving at that destination? And what could prevent this company from reaching such a favorable destination?

Is the CEO allocating capital in a rational way that will enhance the company’s long-term value? Is the company underpaying its employees, mistreating its suppliers, violating its customers’ trust, or engaging in any other shortsighted behavior that could jeopardize its eventual greatness?

He gave the students a series of “prescriptions for guaranteed misery in life,” recommending that they should be unreliable, avoid compromise, harbor resentments, seek revenge, indulge in envy, “ingest chemicals,” become addicted to alcohol, neglect to “learn vicariously from the good and bad experience of others,” cling defiantly to their existing beliefs, and “stay down” when struck by the “first, second, or third severe reverse in the battle of life.

Shinzen Young describes equanimity as a “detached, gentle matter-of-factness within which pleasure and pain are allowed to expand and contract without self-interference.” It’s not dissimilar to the way Marks views the markets, recognizing and accepting that “it is what it is” and, in that nonreactive state, having the clarity to respond logically and without emotion.

Kahn’s answer: “Investing is about preserving more than anything. That must be your first thought, not looking for large gains. If you achieve only reasonable returns and suffer minimal losses, you will become a wealthy man and will surpass any gambler friends you may have. This is also a good way to cure your sleeping problems.

Choosing individual stocks without any idea of what you’re looking for is like running through a dynamite factory with a burning match. You may live, but you’re still an idiot.

Asked about the crash of 1973–74, when his investment partnership lost more than 50 percent, he notes that Berkshire’s stock price has also halved on three occasions: “If you’re going to be in this game for the long pull, which is the way to do it, you better be able to handle a fifty percent decline without fussing too much about it. And so my lesson to all of you is, conduct your life so that you can handle the fifty percent decline with aplomb and grace. Don’t try to avoid it. It will come. In fact, I would say if it doesn’t come, you’re not being aggressive enough.

the human brain is ill-equipped to make rational decisions. Our judgment is frequently torpedoed by emotions such as fear, greed, jealousy, and impatience; by prejudices that distort our perception of reality;

As Russo remarks, we tend to benefit whenever we “sacrifice something today” to “gain something tomorrow.” What’s fascinating to me is that this timeless principle applies not only to business and investing, but to every area of our lives. We can see it when we exercise or diet, when we study hard for an exam or stay late at work, and when we save money or invest for retirement.

The key, he wrote, is to “concentrate on this for your whole life long: for your mind to be in the right state.” That includes “welcoming wholeheartedly whatever comes,” “trusting that all is for the best,” and “not worrying too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or think.” Marcus Aurelius considered it futile to fret or complain about anything beyond his control. He focused instead on mastering his own thoughts and behaving virtuously so he would meet his moral obligations. “Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions,” he argued. “Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been. It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot harm you.” He sought “to be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.

So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

First of all, said Templeton, beware of emotion: “Most people get led astray by emotions in investing. They get led astray by being excessively careless and optimistic when they have big profits, and by getting excessively pessimistic and too cautious when they have big losses.

Even in his eighties, he said, “I try to be more knowledgeable each year as an investor.

Sixth, said Templeton, “One of the most important things as an investor is not to chase fads.

I’m convinced that everything that’s important in investing is counterintuitive, and everything that’s obvious is wrong.

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

Senator William J. Fulbright’s book, The Arrogance of Power. He writes: The question that I find intriguing . . . is whether a nation so extraordinarily endowed as the United States can overcome that arrogance of power, which has afflicted, weakened, and in some cases destroyed great nations in the past . . . Power tends to confuse itself with virtue, and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God’s favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations—to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image.

One of the nice things about video games as a metaphor is that you die all the time,” he explained. “You play, you play, you play, you die. You play, you play, you die.” It’s a harmless way of learning “to accept constant loss and defeat over and over again. And it doesn’t bother you. You just keep doing it. And that’s what investing is.

In World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, Franklin Foer warns, “We’re being dinged, notified, and click-baited, which interrupts any sort of possibility for contemplation. To me, the destruction of contemplation is the existential threat to our humanity.

Instead, he focuses narrowly on owning a few well-run businesses that earn attractive returns on capital and have the ability to keep reinvesting their free cash flow at high rates of return. And then he has the restraint to “leave things well alone.” He has held Markel for twenty-seven years and made more than one hundred times his money. He has owned Berkshire Hathaway for forty-two years. His largest holding, American Tower Corporation, has risen from seventy-nine cents per share to about $260 since 2002. By constructing an unhurried life in a tranquil place, Akre can “shelter” himself from the influence of other investors’ “brilliant ideas” and “stay focused completely on the things that work for us.” In essence, he’s discovered one well-stocked pond, and he’s content to fish there for the rest of his days. Or, as Akre puts it, “We can’t dance with all the ladies.” All

My favorite story about Danoff’s intensity comes from Bill Miller, who recalls being introduced to him at an investment conference in Phoenix about thirty years ago: “I stuck out my hand and I said, ‘Nice to meet you, Will.’ And he didn’t hold his hand out. He just looked at me and said, ‘I’m gonna beat you, man. I’m gonna beat you.

But my favorite story of Munger’s flamboyant failures in diplomacy comes from Buffett, who shared it with Pabrai and Guy Spier over lunch in 2008. Munger, who has a glass eye, visited the Department of Motor Vehicles, where a hapless bureaucrat made the unfortunate error of asking him, “Do you still have just one good eye?” Munger replied, “No. I’ve grown a new one.

how to prepare for the future instead of fooling ourselves into believing we can predict it.

Fragility comes in many forms

As the Prussian military strategist General Carl von Clausewitz said, “The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.

Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

I think that people underestimate—until they get older—they underestimate just how important habits are, and how difficult they are to change when you’re forty-five or fifty, and how important it is that you form the right ones when you’re young. —Warren Buffett

In a world where nothing is stable or dependable and almost anything can happen, the first rule of the road is to be honest with ourselves about our limitations and vulnerabilities

Like Buffett and Munger, Pabrai spends most of the day reading.

As John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost, which he dictated after going blind, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.

the ideal amount to give your kids is enough so they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing.

Is originality overrated? Instead of struggling to innovate, should most of us focus our energy on replicating what smarter and wiser people have already figured out?

Be patient and selective, saying no to almost everything. Exploit the market’s bipolar mood swings. Buy stocks at a big discount to their underlying value. Stay within your circle of competence. Avoid anything too hard. Make a small number of mispriced bets with minimal downside and significant upside.

Just because a lot of people say something is true, that doesn’t carry any particular weight with me,” said Thorp. “You need to do some independent thinking, especially about the important things, and try to work them out for yourself. Check the evidence. Check the basis of conventional beliefs.

How can I make smart decisions about the future if the future is unknowable?

Munger describes himself as a collector of “absurdities,” “asininities,” and “inanities.” His daughter Molly recalls listening in her youth to his many cautionary tales “about people doing stupid things,” which often included “a tinge of ingratitude and poor moral judgment.” A typical story would feature the cosseted heir to a fortune who turned with bitter resentment against his father.

This habit of actively collecting examples of other people’s foolish behavior is an invaluable antidote to idiocy. In fact, it’s the second great anti-stupidity technique we should learn from Munger.

They succumb to the egotistical delusion that they can predict the future, instead of recognizing the limits of their knowledge. And they leap blindly into manias, their judgment fogged by “return envy” and the fear of missing out.

As Buffett has said, “Business schools reward difficult, complex behavior more than simple behavior. But simple behavior is more effective.” Buffett

But in financial markets, as in martial arts, victory doesn’t depend on dazzling displays of esoteric techniques. It depends on a firm grasp of the principles of the game and a deep mastery of basic skills.

If you want to become “a stock market master,” he explained, “stick to buying good companies (ones that have a high return on capital) and to buying those companies only at bargain prices (at prices that give you a high earnings yield).

Stocks are ownership shares of businesses,” which “you’re valuing and trying to buy at a discount.” The key, then, is to identify situations in which there’s a particularly large spread between the price and the value of the business. That spread gives you a margin of safety, which Greenblatt (like Graham and Buffett) regards as the single most important concept in investing.

I compensate for the lack of intellect with more discipline and steadiness and persistence.

A television reporter once asked Bob Marley, “Are you a rich man?” The musician replied warily, “What you mean rich?” The reporter clarified his question: “You have a lot of possessions? A lot of money in the bank?” Marley responded with a question of his own: “Possessions make you rich? I don’t have that type of richness. My richness is life, forever.

One of his favorite quotes is from the philosopher Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

Despite his inexperience, he understood enough about economic history, financial markets, and human nature to recognize that overwhelming pessimism would eventually give way to unbridled optimism. Even in the darkest of times, he never forgot that the sun also rises.

When Sleep was about twenty, he fell under the spell of Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. This memoir-as-tutorial, which had been rejected by 121 publishers, is a strange but brilliant meditation on what it means to lead a life dedicated to “Quality.” Pirsig exalts people who care so intensely about the quality of their actions and decisions that even the most mundane work becomes a spiritual exercise—a reflection of inner traits such as patience, integrity, rationality, and serenity. Whether you’re mending a chair, sewing a dress, or sharpening a kitchen knife, he writes that there is “an ugly way of doing it” and “a high-quality, beautiful way of doing it.

For Pirsig, motorcycle maintenance provides an ideal metaphor for how to live and work in a transcendent way. “The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself,” he writes. “The machine that appears to be ‘out there’ and the person that appears to be ‘in here’ are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together.

As the author Upton Sinclair wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!

That turns me off.” A vegetarian teetotaler with a passion for yoga, he prefers to sip beetroot smoothies in his book-filled office than to feast in elegant restaurants. “I’m really not into clothes,” he adds. “I have three suits.” For many years, he drove a Nissan Maxima because “it was the best value you could get in a car.

… You can dramatically extend life—not by multiplying the number of your years, but by expanding the fullness of your moments.

In his book The Science of Enlightenment, Shinzen Young writes of learning to experience the world with “radical fullness” by focusing on every moment with “extraordinary concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity.

Rule 1: Clone like crazy. Rule 2: Hang out with people who are better than you. Rule 3: Treat life as a game, not as a survival contest or a battle to the death. Rule 4: Be in alignment with who you are; don’t do what you don’t want to do or what’s not right for you. Rule 5: Live by an inner scorecard; don’t worry about what others think of you; don’t be defined by external validation.

Buffett himself is a grand master of simplification. Writing to his shareholders in 1977, he laid out his four criteria for selecting any stock: “We want the business to be (1) one that we can understand, (2) with favorable long-term prospects, (3) operated by honest and competent people, and (4) available at a very attractive price.” These may not strike you as earth-shattering secrets. But it’s hard to beat this distillation of eternal truths about what makes a stock desirable.

The key, then, is to identify situations in which there’s a particularly large spread between the price and the value of the business. That spread gives you a margin of safety, which Greenblatt (like Graham and Buffett) regards as the single most important concept in investing.

Life always teaches lessons. Some situations are a learning experience. You need to pay attention which ones are those ones, So that the history doesn’t repeat itself and because those ones are the ones that will build you up . Making you stronger, wiser, richer, happier and successful.

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life. Think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea and just leave every other idea alone.

When things or people are successful, it usually brings in hubris, overexpansion, a belief that we can’t miss, which is very dangerous.

The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is: its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. —G. K. Chesterton

a quote from the Roman poet Horace: “Many shall be restored that now are fallen and many shall fall that now are in honor.

There’s a counterintuitive elegance to this idea that, when it comes to investing, beauty often lies in mundanity, not glamour.

Once you have a sense that life is meaningless, what should you do? Not fuck up life for other people. Leave the planet a better place than you found it. Do a good job with your kids. The rest of it is a game. It doesn’t matter.

Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

Second, there is the idea of focusing on whatever has the longest shelf life, while always downplaying the ephemeral.

First, they provide a compelling example of what it means to pursue quality as a guiding principle in business, investing, and life—a moral and intellectual commitment inspired by Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Third, there is the realization that one particular business model—scale economies shared—creates a virtuous cycle that can generate sustainable wealth over long periods.

Munger particularly admires their unflinching determination to seek out “disconfirming evidence” that might disprove even their most cherished beliefs. This mental habit, which takes many different forms, is our fifth defense against idiocy.

The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.

That means adopting “a mindset of falsification,” always striving to “disprove” your hypothesis, and seeing “if it stands up to the assault.” One of Shubin Stein’s favorite questions is, “Why might I be wrong?

The scientific literature shows that hunger, anger, loneliness, tiredness, pain, and stress are common “preconditions for poor decision making.” So Shubin Stein uses an acronym, HALT-PS, as a reminder to pause when those factors might be impairing his judgment and postpone important decisions until he’s in a state in which his brain is more likely to function well.* This is our seventh technique for reducing avoidable stupidity.

There are four things that we know improve brain health and brain function,” says Shubin Stein. “Meditation, exercise, sleep, and nutrition.

Asked about China, he marvels at its economic transformation, but laments that too many Chinese “like to gamble, and they actually believe in luck. Now, that is stupid. What you don’t want to believe in is luck. You want to believe in odds.

Asked about the crash of 1973–74, when his investment partnership lost more than 50 percent, he notes that Berkshire’s stock price has also halved on three occasions: “If you’re going to be in this game for the long pull, which is the way to do it, you better be able to handle a fifty percent decline without fussing too much about it. And so my lesson to all of you is, conduct your life so that you can handle the fifty percent decline with aplomb and grace. Don’t try to avoid it. It will come. In fact, I would say if it doesn’t come, you’re not being aggressive enough.

It’s simple. If your life is more important than your principles, you sacrifice your principles. If your principles are more important than your life, you sacrifice your life.

His psychiatrist told him that he had triumphed back then by adopting mental strategies that professional athletes used routinely—setting clearly defined goals, visualizing themselves performing flawlessly, and repeating affirmations that crowded out all doubts and fears until they were replaced with unshakable self-belief.

As Kahn put it, the secret of investing could be expressed in one word: “safety.” And the key to making intelligent investment decisions was always to begin by asking, “How much can I lose?