Warren Buffett Quotes
376 Warren Buffett Quotes
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We do not have, never have had, and never will have an opinion about where the stockmarket, interest rates, or business activity will be a year from now.
Warren Buffett
The stock market serves as a relocation centre at which money is moved from the active to the patient.
Warren Buffett
Our goal is to find an outstanding business at a sensible price, not a mediocre business at a bargain price.
Warren Buffett
We select our marketable equity securities in much the same way we would evaluate a business for acquisition in it’s entirety. We want the business to be one a) that we understand b) with favourable long-term prosects c) operated by honest and competent people and d) available at a very attractive price.
Warren Buffett
An investor needs to do very few things right as long as he or she avoids big mistakes.
Warren Buffett
Would you believe that a few decades back they were growing shrimp at Coke and exploring for oil at Gillette? Loss of focus is what most worries Charlie and me when we contemplate investing in businesses that in general look outstanding.
Warren Buffett
First each pair is stronger than the sum of it’s parts because each partner understands, trusts and admires the other. Second, both managerial teams pay able people well, but abhor having a bigger head count than is needed. Third, both attack costs as vigorously when profits are at record levels as when they are under pressure. Finally both stick with what they understand and let their abilities, not their egos, determine what they attempt. Thomas J Watson Sr of IBM followed the same rule: ‘I’m no genius’ he said. ‘I’m smart in spots – but I stay around those spots’”.
Warren Buffett
But as happens in Wall Street all too often, what the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.
Warren Buffett
Be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.
Warren Buffett
We want those who think of themselves as business owners and invest in companies with the intention of staying a long time. And we want those who keep their eyes focussed on business results, not market prices.
Warren Buffett
People who buy for non-value reasons are likely to sell for non-value reasons. Their presence in the picture will accentuate erratic price swings unrelated to business developments.
Warren Buffett
And there after I revised my strategy and tried to buy good businesses at fair prices rather than fair businesses at good prices.
Warren Buffett
We continually look for ways to employ large sums in each area. But we try to avoid small commitments. If something’s not worth doing at all, it’s not worth doing well.
Warren Buffett
At Berkshire, we have rejected many merger and purchase opportunities that would have boosted current and near-term earnings but that would have reduced per-share intrinsic value. Our approach, rather has been to follow Wayne Gretzky’s advice: ‘Go to where the puck is going to be, not to where it is.’ As a result, our shareholders are now many billions of dollars richer than they would have been if we had used the standard catechism.
Warren Buffett
Most business owners spend the better part of their lifetimes building their businesses. By experience built upon endless repetition, they sharpen their skills in merchandising, purchasing, personnel etc. It’s a learning process and mistakes made in one year often contribute to competence and success in succeeding years.
Warren Buffett
Managers and investors alike must understand that accounting numbers are the beginning, not the end, of business valuation.
Warren Buffett
You can have a full and rewarding life without ever thinking about goodwill and it’s amortisation. But students of investment and management should understand the nuances of the subject. My own thinking has changed drastically from 35 years ago when I was taught to favour tangible assets and to shun businesses whose value depended largely upon economic goodwill. This bias caused me to make many important business mistakes of omission although relatively few of commission. Keynes identified my problem ‘The difficulty lies not in the new ideas but in escaping from the old ones.’ My escape was long delayed, in part because most of what I had been taught by the same teacher had been (and continues to be) so extraordinarily valuable. Ultimately, business experience, direct and vicarious, produced my present strong preference for businesses that possess large amounts of enduring goodwill and that utilise a minium of tangible assets.
Warren Buffett
Thus our first lesson: businesses logically are worth far more than net tangible assets when they can be expected to produce earnings on such assets considerably in excess of market rates of return. The capitalised value of this excess return is economic goodwill.
Warren Buffett
We will stick with the approach that got us here and try not to relax our standards. Ted Williams, in The story of my life explains why: ‘My argument is to be a good hitter, you’ve got to get a good ball to hit. It’s the first rule in the book. If I have to bite at stuff that is out of my happy zone, I’m not a .344 hitter. I might only be a .250 hitter.’ Charlie and I agree and will try to wait for opportunities that are well within our own ‘happy zone’.
Warren Buffett
We will continue to ignore political and economic forecasts, which are an expensive distraction for many investors and businessmen. Thirty years ago, no one could have foreseen the huge expansion of the Vietnam War, wage and price controls, two oil shocks, the resignation of a president, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a one-day drop in the Dow of 508 points, or treasury bill yields fluctuating between 2.8% and 17.4%. … imagine the cost to us if we had let a fear of unknowns cause us to defer or alter the deployment of capital. Indeed, 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.
Warren Buffett
Most of our managers are independently wealthy, and it’s therefore up to us to create a climate that encourages them to choose working with Berkshire over golfing or fishing.
Warren Buffett
I like businesses that I know what they will look like in 5 or 10 or 20 years. I think I know what Coke will look like.
Warren Buffett
If you understand a business, you don’t need very many of them.
Warren Buffett
Maybe grapes from a little eight acre vineyard in France are really the best in the world, but I always had a suspicion that about 99 percent of it is in the telling and about 1 percent of it is in the drinking.
Warren Buffett
I want to explain my mistakes. This means I do only the things I completely understand.
Warren Buffett
In the end, I always believe my eyes rather than anything else.
Warren Buffett
One of the things that attracted me to working with securities was the fact that you could live your own life. You don’t have to dress for success.
Warren Buffett
I can’t think of anything in life I want that I don’t have.
Warren Buffett
It’s easier to create money than to spend it.
Warren Buffett
Upon my death Berkshire’s earnings will immediately increase by $1 million, since Charlie will sell the corporate jet the next day, ignoring my wish to be buried with the Indefensible.
Warren Buffett
To swim a fast 100 metres, it’s better to swim with the tide than to work on your stroke.
Warren Buffett
I don’t measure my life by the money I’ve made. Other people might, but I certainly don’t.
Warren Buffett
Never lie under any circumstances. Don’t pay any attention to the lawyers. If you start letting lawyers get into the picture, they’ll basically tell you, ‘don’t say anything.’ You’ll never get tangled up if you just basically lay it out as you see it.
Warren Buffett
Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
Warren Buffett
I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.
Warren Buffett
I’m not competent to judge his [Bill Gates] technical ability, but I regard his business savvy as extraordinary. If Bill had started a hot dog stand, he would have become the hot dog king of the world. He will win in any game. He would be very good at my business, but I wouldn’t be at his.
Warren Buffett
Retirement plans? About 5 to 10 years after I die.
Warren Buffett
Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without the first, you really want them to be dumb and lazy.
Warren Buffett
I like guys who forget that they sold the business to me and run the show like proprietors. When I marry the daughter, she continues to live with her parents.
Warren Buffett
If you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control your money.
Warren Buffett
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