WARREN BUFFET Quotes

A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.

An educational approach to money and investing struck me as a very good idea. People do form behavior habits very young on matters of money. I get calls every day from people who are in a financial hole.

Berkshire Hathaway will sell you insurance, carpeting or any of our other products in exchange for options identical to those you grant yourselves.

Bill Gates and I kind of cooked it up together. We hope we could get a school program someplace, where the kids were taught the game and . . . develop a lot of competition between schools. ... We'd go down and play the best team. It would be fun for me and Bill to play the champions. And it might spur them on some.

Cash never makes us happy, but it's better to have the money burning a hole in Berkshire's pocket than resting comfortably in someone else's.

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

Despite the lack of precedent, a negative coupon security seemed possible in the present interest rate environment ... I asked Goldman Sachs to create such an instrument and they responded promptly with the innovative security being announced today.

During 2002 we entered the foreign currency market for the first time in my life. In 2003, we enlarged our position, as I became increasingly bearish on the dollar.

I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute.

I am a bull on sterling versus the U.S. dollar.

I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.

I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.

I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.

I have known Arnold [Schwarnegger] for years and know he'll be a great governor. It is critical to the rest of the nation that California's economic crisis be solved, and I think Arnold will get that job done.

I have no idea on timing. It's far easier to tell what will happen than when it will happen. I would say that what is going on in terms of trade policy is going to have very important consequences.

I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.

I personally think it would be better if the NYSE remained as a neutral, not-for-big-profit institution. The exchange has done a very good job over the centuries. It's one of the most important institutions in the world. The enemy of investment is activity.... I know the American investor will not be better off if volume doubles on the NYSE, and I know the NYSE will be trying to figure out how to do that if it is trying to maximize its own earnings per share. GM or IBM will not earn more money if their stock turns over more actively, but a for-profit NYSE will.

I personally would increase the taxable base above the present ninety thousand. I pay very, very little in the way of social security taxes because I make a lot more than ninety thousand and the people in my office pay the full tax.

I recently sold a house in Laguna for $3.5 million. It was on about 2,000 square feet of land, maybe a twentieth of an acre, and the house might cost about $500,000 if you wanted to replace it. So the land sold for something like $60 million an acre.

I stop [at Burger King] occasionally for a hamburger and that's as close as I've gotten.

I want to give my kids enough so that they could feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

If California has troubles, the country has troubles.

[If] Corporate America is serious about reforming itself, CEO pay remains the acid test, ... The results aren't encouraging.

If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.

[In most boardrooms,] collegiality trumped independence, ... would be like belching at the dinner table.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

It's better to hang out with people better than you, ... Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you'll drift in that direction.

It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to lose it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

Let us do or die.

Liquid resources and strong financial backing are scarce and valuable assets in today's telecommunications world. Level 3 has both.

Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.

Now it's $200 billion. If we don't change the course, the rest of the world could own $15 trillion of us. That's pretty substantial. That's equal to the value of all American stock.

Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.

Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

Only when you combine sound intellect with emotional discipline, you get rational behavior.

Our favourite holding period is forever.

Our ignorance means we must follow the course prescribed by Pascal in his famous wager about the existence of God. Since he didn't know the answer, his personal gain/loss ratio dictated an affirmative conclusion.

Over the years, our current businesses, in aggregate, should deliver modest growth in operating earnings. But they will not in themselves produce truly satisfactory gains. We will need major acquisitions to get that job done.

Putting $1,000 in the pockets of 310,000 families with urgent needs is going to provide far more stimulus to the economy than putting the same $310 million in my pockets.

Right now, the rest of the world owns $3 trillion more of us than we own of them. In my view, it will create political turmoil at some point. ... Pretty soon, I think there will be a big adjustment.

Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.

Risk is a part of God's game, alike for men and nations.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

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.

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

The directors know now -- and will always know in the future -- exactly what they will do when the need arises. And while we are on the subject, I feel terrific.

The EURO is EASY to trade.

The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.

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

The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth.

The market outperformed business for a very long time, and that phenomenon had to end.

The only time to buy these is on a day with no 'y' in it.

The policies that we're following are likely to lead to a weaker dollar over a long period of years. It's not a forecast for next week, or next month or even next year.

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. [For] to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves-and the better the teacher, the better the student body.

The typical large company has a compensation committee, ... They don't look for Dobermans on that committee, they look for chihuahuas.

The war on terrorism can never be won.

There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't.

There's no question in my mind the number one problem of mankind is the spread of nuclear knowledge, ... It should be at the top of the list for our government.

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

These costs are now being incurred in amounts that will cause shareholders to earn far less than they historically have.

Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.

Today's equity prices presage only modest returns for investors.

Two rules:

1. Preserve the principal
2. When in doubt see Rule #1

Unfortunately, the hangover from [the market bubble] may prove to be proportional to the binge.

Value is what you get.

Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.

We believe that according the name "investors" to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a "romantic".

We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.

We felt that the risk profile had changed.

In making this acquisition of Business Wire, we have followed our blueprint of buying profitable companies that are industry leaders, yet have significant growth potential.

We quickly realized that Business Wire was a gem of a company.

We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.

We would rather look for easier things to do.

When a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.

Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful".

Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.

You do things when the opportunities come along. I've had periods in my life when I've had a bundle of ideas come along, and I've had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I'll do something. If not, I won't do a damn thing.

You've been drafted into a war you didn't start, ... Focus on your customers and lead your people as though their lives depended on your success.

You have to learn to understand your partner, to be tolerant, sympathetic, encouraging. Those are skills that are not bad to have in life.

You need an outstanding manager - you can define that in many ways... but you are looking for the best player out there. We are looking for the best player in this kind of business in the world.

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.

Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it's not going to get the business.

paul's e-scrapbook

WARREN BUFFET QUOTES

Collated by Paul Quek

Title: "Warren Buffett and You"

Sub-title: "What you can learn from the strengths of the world's greatest investor"