"You have to know accounting. It's the language of practical business life. It was a very useful thing to deliver to civilization. I've heard it came to civilization through Venice which of course was once the great commercial power in the Mediterranean. However, double entry bookkeeping was a hell of an invention."
"The average result has to be the average result. By definition, everybody can't beat the market. As I always say, the iron rule of life is that only 20% of the people can be in the top fifth. That's just the way it is."
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Source: A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom as it Relates to Investment Management and Business. Charlie Munger's lecture to the students at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, 1994.
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"The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more."
"Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs."
"What do you want to avoid? Such an easy answer: sloth and unreliability. If you're unreliable it doesn't matter what your virtues are. You're going to crater immediately. Doing what you have faithfully engaged to do should be an automatic part of your conduct. You want to avoid sloth and unreliability."
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"I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span."