We look for a horse with one chance in two of winning and which pays you three to one.
I think we have some special talents. That being said, I think it’s dangerous to rely on special talents – it’s better to own lots of monopolistic businesses with unregulated prices. But that’s not the world today. We have made money exercising our talents and will continue to do so.
Clever derivatives broke dozens of companies. It killed them. Bankrupt. We don’t need these kinds of innovation in finance. It’s OK to be boring in finance. What we want is innovation in widgets.
I bet Richard Fuld doesn’t have an ounce of contrition. It’s just megalomania. When it’s like that, you need rules to prevent catastrophe. When banks are borrowing the government’s credit rating, you need rules to prevent stupid things.
I’m a bull on Berkshire Hathaway. There may be some considerable waiting, but I think there are some good days ahead.
I don’t want to sell credit to people who are going to hurt themselves with it. You should only sell products that are good for the people who use them. Some disagree with this, but I know I’m right. That is to say, you’re talking to a Republican who admires Elizabeth Warren.
Fancy computers are engaging in legalized front-running. The profits are clearly coming from the rest of us – our college endowments and our pensions. Why is this legal? What the hell is the government thinking? It’s like letting rats into a restaurant.
There is the sheer amount of Franklin’s wisdom. And the talent. Franklin played four instruments. He was the nation’s leading scientist and inventor, plus a leading author, statesman, and philanthropist. There has never been anyone like him.
The best armor of old age is a well-spent life preceding it.
If you rise in life, you have to behave in a certain way. You can go to a strip club if you’re a beer-swilling sand shoveler, but if you’re the Bishop of Boston, you shouldn’t go.
If only I had the influence with my wife and children that I have in some other quarters!
Don’t do cocaine. Don’t race trains. And avoid AIDS situations.
If you get into the mental habit of relating what you’re reading to the basic structure of the underlying ideas being demonstrated, you gradually accumulate some wisdom.
I don’t think vengeance is much good.
The average result has to be the average result. By definition, everybody can’t beat the market. As I always say, the iron rule of life is that only 20% of the people can be in the top fifth. That’s just the way it is.
Rationality is not just something you do so that you can make more money, it is a binding principle. Rationality is a really good idea. You must avoid the nonsense that is conventional in one’s own time. It requires developing systems of thought that improve your batting average over time.
Let me know what your problem is, and I will try to make it more difficult for you.
In the 1930s, there as a stretch here you could borrow more against the real estate than you could sell it for. I think that’s hat’s going on in today’s private-equity world.
Opportunity comes to the prepared mind.
Berkshireis in the business of making easy predictions If a deal looks too hard, the partners simply shelve it.