Quote collection
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"I mean, Hank Paulson is in there [ Treasury] at the wrong time, probably shouldn't have taken the job. He's a friend of mine. But he knows markets, he knows corporations' work, he knows money, and he's got the interests of the country at heart."
"If I eat 2,700 calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola."
"I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of - of American capitalism."
"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."
"If book knowledge made great investors, than the librarians would all be rich."
"We have usually made our best purchases when apprehensions about some macro event were at a peak. Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist."
"A lot of great fortunes in the world have been made by owning a single wonderful business. If you understand the business, you don't need to own very many of them."
"Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that "Price is what you pay; value is what you get." Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down."
"Always invest for the long term."
"If you don't make mistakes you can't make decisions."
"There are three important principles to Graham's approach. [The first is to look at stocks as fractional shares of a business, which] gives you an entirely different view than most people who are in the market. [The second principle is the margin-of-safety concept, which] gives you the competitive advantage. [The third is having a true investor's attitude toward the stock market, which] if you have that attitude, you start out ahead of 99 percent of all the people who are operating in the stock market - it's an enormous advantage."
"An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it."
"The American economy is going to do fine. But it won't do fine every year and every week and every month. I mean, if you don't believe that, forget about buying stocks anyway... It's a positive-sum game, long term. And the only way an investor can get killed is by high fees or by trying to outsmart the market."
"That which is not worth doing at all is not worth doing well."
"If, when making a stock investment, you're not considering holding it at least ten years, don't waste more than ten minutes considering it."
"I bought a company in the mid-90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I've made lots of dumb decisions. That's part of the game."
"What an investor needs is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that word “selected”: You don't have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital."
"Charlie [Munger] and I are not big fans of resumes. Instead, we focus on brains, passion and integrity."
"Possessing a powerful worldwide brand is essential for sustained success."
"The three most important words in investing...Margin of Safety."