Charlie Munger Quotes

I see [Bitcoin as] an artificial speculative medium that people are buying just because they think they can sell it to somebody else at a higher price, even though it inherently has no intrinsic value. So, I regard the whole business as anti-social, stupid, immoral. [...] I regard the thing as a combination of dementia and immorality, and I think the people that are pushing it are a disgrace.

The first helpful notion is that it is usually best to simplify problems by deciding big no-brainer questions first.

it. I don’t mean to say that he’s only had 10 insights. I’m just saying that most of the money came from 10 insights.

He also had a very interesting competitive strategy in the early days. He was like a prizefighter who wanted a great record so he could be in the finals and make a big TV hit. So what did he do? He went out and fought 42 palookas. Right? And the result was knockout, knockout, knockout — 42 times.

No man’s life should be accounted a happy one until it is over.

I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody’s that smart.

Avoid unnecessary transactional taxes and frictional costs; never take action for its own sake.

If you have competence, you pretty much know its boundaries already. To ask the question [of whether you are past the boundary] is to answer it

It's amazing how intelligent it is just to spend some time sitting. A lot of people are way too active.

Stay within a well-defined circle of competence.

The principal job of an academic administration is to keep the people who don’t matter from interfering with the work of the people who do.

The third helpful notion is that it is not enough to think problems through forward. You must also think in reverse, much like the rustic who wanted to know where he was going to die so that he’d never go there. Indeed, many problems can’t be solved forward. And that is why the great algebraist Carl Jacobi so often said, “Invert, always invert,” and

Therefore, if you interpret being true to yourself as requiring that you retain every notion of your youth, you will be safely underway, not only toward maximizing ignorance but also toward whatever misery can be obtained through unpleasant experiences in business.

If anything, I now believe even more strongly that 1) reliability is essential for progress in life and 2) while quantum mechanics is unlearnable for a vast majority, reliability can be learned to great advantage by almost anyone.

Three rules for a career: 1) Don't sell anything you wouldn't buy yourself. 2) Don't work for anyone you don't respect and admire. 3) Work only with people you enjoy.