Warren Buffett Quotes

We are suspicious of those CEOs who regularly claim they do know the future — and we become downright incredulous if they consistently reach their declared targets. Managers that always promise to “make the numbers” will at some point be tempted to make up the numbers.

Our goal is more modest: We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.

What you should probably ask yourself is that who do you feel that you'd want to start spending the last day of your life with? And then figure out a way to start meeting them, or tomorrow, and meet them as often as you can, because why wait a little last day and don't bother with the others?

wishing makes dreams come true only in Disney movies; it’s poison in business.

operating earnings plus depreciation and amortization less normalized capital expenditures — was adequate to cover both interest and modest reductions in debt.

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.

Over the past 15 years, both Internet stocks and houses have demonstrated the extraordinary excesses that can be created by combining an initially sensible thesis with well-publicized rising prices. In these bubbles, an army of originally skeptical investors succumbed to the “proof” delivered by the market, and the pool of buyers — for a time — expanded sufficiently to keep the bandwagon rolling. But bubbles blown large enough inevitably pop. And then the old proverb is confirmed once again: “What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end.

Look for integrity, intelligence and energy.

Our aversion to leverage has dampened our returns over the years. But Charlie and I sleep well. Both of us believe it is insane to risk what you have and need in order to obtain what you don’t need. We held this view 50 years ago when we each ran an investment partnership, funded by a few friends and relatives who trusted us. We also hold it today after a million or so “partners” have joined us at Berkshire.

Our capital is underutilized now, but that will happen periodically. It’s a painful condition to be in — but not as painful as doing something stupid. (I speak from experience.)

Alas, my “fiddle playing” will not get me to Carnegie Hall — or even to a high school recital. Berkshire, on your behalf and mine, will send the Treasury $3.3 billion for tax on its 2003 income, a sum equaling 2½% of the total income tax paid by all U.S. corporations in fiscal 2003.

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 can't tell whose side someone is on, they are not on yours.

The best thing you can do is to be exceptionally good at something.

The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities — that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future — will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There’s a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.