Warren Buffett Quotes

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

Honesty is a very expensive gift, Don't expect it from cheap people.

Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful

If you’re in the luckiest one per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.

Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.

The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.

I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.

We both (Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett) insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think.

Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing

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

No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minuted to ruin it. If you think about that you'll do things differently.

There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.

Rule No. 1 : Never lose money. Rule No. 2 : Never forget Rule No. 1.

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.

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.

You never know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out.

You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.

Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.

When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.

There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. 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?

I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute.

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

Games are won by players who focus on the playing field –- not by those whose eyes are glued to the scoreboard.

It's nice to have a lot of money, but you know, you don't want to keep it around forever. I prefer buying things. Otherwise, it's a little like saving sex for your old age.

If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.

I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.

Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.

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.

If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.

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

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.

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.

I do know that when I am 60, I should be attempting to achieve different personal goals than those which had priority at age 20.

Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be.

Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble

Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill.

Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.

H is for Habit, winners make a habit of doing the things losers don't want to do.

The most important investment you can make is in yourself.

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

Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.

Do not save what is left after spending; instead spend what is left after saving.

If you aren't thinking about owning a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes.

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

We don’t have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest.

I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.

I am not a businessman, I am an artist

[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.

An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it.

A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.

Warren Buffett is one of the best learning machines on this earth. The turtles which outrun the hares are learning machines. If you stop learning in this world, the world rushes right by you.

The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say “no” to almost everything.

Warren Buffett is fond of saying that any player unaware of the fool in the market probably is the fool in the market.

If past history was all that is needed to play the game of money, the richest people would be librarians.

If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need.

A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse—not a remarkable mathematician.

In the long run managements stressing accounting appearance over economic substance usually achieve little of either.

Just do it! First you make your habits, then your habits make you!

I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.

Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the models. Beware of geeks bearing formulas.

Intensity is the price of excellence.

I would combine radical honesty with an old rule Warren Buffett has, which is praise specifically, criticize generally.

Warren Buffett said that he would not invest in any business where the owner hasn’t failed at least twice. I love that truly wealthy and successful people understand that failure is part of the process.

calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor “is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic.

Writing a check separates a commitment from a conversation.

Assiduity, it means sit down until you do it. Commit yourself to your work and study.

I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.

Buffett found it 'extraordinary' that academics studied such things. They studied what was measurable, rather than what was meaningful. 'As a friend [Charlie Munger] said, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

So smile when you read a headline that says “Investors lose as market falls.” Edit it in your mind to “Disinvestors lose as market falls—but investors gain.” Though writers often forget this truism, there is a buyer for every seller and what hurts one necessarily helps the other. (As they say in golf matches: “Every putt makes someone happy.”)

Never depend on single income. Make investment to create a second source.

When a person with money meets a person with experience, the one with experience ends up with the money and the one with money leaves with experience.

Failing conventionally is the route to go; as a group, lemmings may have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press

You do things when the opportunities come along. I've had periods in my life when I've had a bundle of ideals come along, and I've had long dry spells. If I get an ideal next week, I'll do something. If not, I won't do a damn thing.

When I was sixteen, I had just two things on my mind - girls and cars. I wasn't very good with girls. So I thought about cars. I thought about girls, too, but I had more luck with cars. Let's say that when I turned sixteen, a genie had appeared to me. And that genie said, 'Warren, I'm going to give you the car of your choice. It'll be here tomorrow morning with a big bow tied on it. Brand-new. And it's all yours.' Having heard all the genie stories, I would say, 'What's the catch?' And the genie would answer, 'There's only one catch. This is the last car you're ever going to ge tin your life. So it's got to last a lifetime.' If that had happened, I would have picked out that car. But, can you imagine, knowing it had to last a lifetime, what I would do with it? I would read the manual about five times. I would always keep it garaged. If there was the least little dent or scratch, I'd have it fixed right away because I wouldn't want it rusting. I would baby that car, because it would have to last a lifetime. That's exactly the position you are in concerning your mind and body. You only get one mind and one body. And it's got to last a lifetime. Now, it's very easy to let them ride for many years. But if you don't take care of that mind and that body, they'll be a wreck forty years later, just life the car would be. It's what you do right now, today, that determines how your mind and body will operate ten, twenty, and thirty years from now.

In fact, when Warren Buffett was once asked about the key to success, he pointed to a stack of nearby books and said, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.

If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But, if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.

Culture, more than rule books, determines how an organization behaves.

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

Derivatives are like sex. It's not who we're sleeping with, it's who they're sleeping with that's the problem.

I is for Integrity, be honest with yourself and others.

The modern spirit is a hesitant one. Spontaneity has given way to cautious legalisms, and the age of heroes has been superseded by a cult of specialization. We have no more giants; only obedient ants.

I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful

S is for SCARY! Fear is driven out by action! Bad habits are overcome by good habits.

Think outside the square. Think for yourself don't just follow the herd. Think multidisciplinary! Problems by definition, cross many academic disciplines.

Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre.

The more you learn, the more you earn.

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.

But then it dawned on me that the opinion of someone who is always wrong has its own special utility to decision-makers.

I won't close down a business of subnormal profitability merely to add a fraction of a point to our corporate returns. I also feel it inappropriate for even an exceptionally profitable company to fund an operation once it appears to have unending losses in prospect. Adam Smith would disagree with my first proposition and Karl Marx would disagree with my second; the middle ground is the only position that leaves me comfortable.

Buffett was a billionaire who drove his own car, did his own taxes, and still lived in a home he had bought in 1958 for $31,500. He seemed to answer to a deeply rooted, distinctly American mythology, in which decency and common sense triumphed over cosmopolitan guile, and in which an idealized past held firm against a rootless and too hurriedly changing present.

Gold is a way of going long on fear, and it has been a pretty good way of going long on fear from time to time. But you really have to hope people become more afraid in a year or two years than they are now. And if they become more afraid you make money, if they become less afraid you lose money, but the gold itself doesn’t produce anything.

I don't have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It's like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GDP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don't do that though. I don't use very many of those claim checks. There's nothing material I want very much. And I'm going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die.

The attitude of our managers vividly contrasts with that of the young man who married a tycoon's only child, a decidedly homely and dull lass. Relieved, the father called in his new son- in-law after the wedding and began to discuss the future: Son, you're the boy I always wanted and never had. Here's a stock certificate for 50% of the company. You're my equal partner from now on.' Thanks, dad.' Now, what would you like to run? How about sales?' I'm afraid I couldn't sell water to a man crawling in the Sahara.' Well then, how about heading human relations?' I really don't care for people.' No problem, we have lots of other spots in the business. What would you like to do?' Actually, nothing appeals to me. Why don't you just buy me out?

If you are investing in your education and you are learning, you should do that as early as you possibly can, because then it will have time to compound over the longest period. And that the things you do learn and invest in should be knowledge that is cumulative, so that the knowledge builds on itself. So instead of learning something that might become obsolete tomorrow, like some particular type of software [that no one even uses two years later], choose things that will make you smarter in 10 or 20 years.

On me personally what has been the most important was to understand the value of time -- and this is something that has come from observing him, learning his story and that time compounds. What you do when you are young (and as you use time over your life) can have an exponential effect so that if you are thoughtful about it, you can really have powerful results later, if you want to. Also, that is a reason to be hopeful, because compounding is something that happens pretty quickly. If you are 50 or 60, it is not too late. He said to me one time, if there is something you really want to do, don't put it off until you are 70 years old. ... Do it now. Don't worry about how much it costs or things like that, because you are going to enjoy it now. You don't even know what your health will be like then. On the other hand, if you are investing in your education and you are learning, you should do that as early as you possibly can, because then it will have time to compound over the longest period. And that the things you do learn and invest in should be knowledge that is cumulative, so that the knowledge builds on itself. So instead of learning something that might become obsolete tomorrow, like some particular type of software [that no one even uses two years later], choose things that will make you smarter in 10 or 20 years. That lesson is something I use all the time now.

More than 2,000 books are dedicated to how Warren Buffett built his fortune. Many of them are wonderful. But few pay enough attention to the simplest fact: Buffett’s fortune isn’t due to just being a good investor, but being a good investor since he was literally a child. As I write this Warren Buffett’s net worth is $84.5 billion. Of that, $84.2 billion was accumulated after his 50th birthday. $81.5 billion came after he qualified for Social Security, in his mid-60s. Warren Buffett is a phenomenal investor. But you miss a key point if you attach all of his success to investing acumen. The real key to his success is that he’s been a phenomenal investor for three quarters of a century. Had he started investing in his 30s and retired in his 60s, few people would have ever heard of him. Consider a little thought experiment. Buffett began serious investing when he was 10 years old. By the time he was 30 he had a net worth of $1 million, or $9.3 million adjusted for inflation.16 What if he was a more normal person, spending his teens and 20s exploring the world and finding his passion, and by age 30 his net worth was, say, $25,000? And let’s say he still went on to earn the extraordinary annual investment returns he’s been able to generate (22% annually), but quit investing and retired at age 60 to play golf and spend time with his grandkids. What would a rough estimate of his net worth be today? Not $84.5 billion. $11.9 million. 99.9% less than his actual net worth. Effectively all of Warren Buffett’s financial success can be tied to the financial base he built in his pubescent years and the longevity he maintained in his geriatric years. His skill is investing, but his secret is time. That’s how compounding works. Think of this another way. Buffett is the richest investor of all time. But he’s not actually the greatest—at least not when measured by average annual returns.