Warren Buffett Quotes

If you’ve got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, you’ve got a very good business. If you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by 10%, then you’ve got a bad business.

If you've thought that investment advisors were hired to invest, you may be bewildered by this technique. After buying a farm, would a rational owner next order his real estate agent to start selling off pieces of it whenever a neighboring property was sold at a lower price? Or would you sell your house to whatever bidder was available at 9:31 on some morning merely because at 9:30 a similar house sold for less than it would have brought on the previous day? p213

Instead, he takes those coupons from his low-return bond and — if inclined to reinvest — looks for the highest return with safety currently available. Good money is not thrown after bad.

You don't have to make it back the way that you lost it.

My good friend and hero, Tom Murphy, had an incredible generosity of spirit. He would do five things for you without thinking about whether you did something for him. After he was done with those five things, he'd be thinking about how to do the sixth. He was also an enormously able person in business and was kind of effortless about it. He didn't have to shout or scream or anything like that. He did everything in a very relaxed manner.

Forty years ago, Tom gave me one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received. He said, "Warren, you can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow." It's such an easy way of putting it. You haven't missed the opportunity. Just forget about it for a day. If you feel the same way tomorrow, tell them then—but don't spout off in a moment of anger.

Why even smart people get bad results
It's ego, greed, envy, fear…It's mindless imitation of other people. I mean, there are a variety of factors that cause that horsepower of the mind to get diminished dramatically before the output turns out. And I would say if Charlie and I have any advantage it's not because we're so smart, it's because we're rational and we very seldom let extraneous factors interfere with our thoughts. We don't let other people's opinion interfere with it…we try to get fearful when others are greedy. We try to get greedy when others are fearful. We try to avoid any kind of imitation of other people's behavior. And those are the factors that cause smart people to get average to bad results.

I always look at IQ and talent as representing the horsepower of the motor, but in terms of output, the efficiency with which the motor works, depends on rationality. That's because a lot of people start out with 400-horsepower motor and get a hundred horsepower of output. So why do smart people do things that interfere with getting the output they're entitled to? It gets into the habits, and character and temperament, and it really gets into behaving in a rational manner. Not getting in your own way.

If the people who you want to have love you love you, you're a success. You can have all the money in the world, you can have buildings named after you, and unless you've got people who really care about you, you are not a success.

And you can't look around for people to agree with you. You can't look around for people to even know what you're talking about. You know, you have to think for yourself. And if you do, you'll find things.

You can't expect anybody else to do it for you. I mean, people will not tell — they will not tell you about wonderful little investments. There's — it's not the way the investment business is set up.

When I first visited GEICO in January of 1951, I went back to Columbia. And I — that rest of that year, I subsequently went down to Blythe and Company and, actually, to one other firm that was a leading — Geyer & Co. — that was a leading analyst in insurance.

And, you know, I thought I'd discovered this wonderful thing and I'd see what these great investment houses that specialized in insurance stocks said. And they said I didn't know what I was talking about. You know, they — it wasn't of any interest to them.

You've got to follow your own — you know, you've got to learn what you know and what you don't know. Within the arena of what you know, you have to just — you have to pursue it very vigorously and act on it when you find it.

And you can't look around for people to agree with you. You can't look around for people to even know what you're talking about. You know, you have to think for yourself. And if you do, you'll find things.

Ask yourself who you'd want to spend the last day of your life with and then meet with them as often as you can.

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?

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

But the best thing you can do is to be exceptionally good at something. If you're the best doctor in town, if you're the best lawyer in town, if you're the best whatever it may be, no matter whether people are paying you with a zillion dollars or paying with — they're going to give you some of what they produce in exchange for what you deliver.

Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.