Fixable but unfixed bad performance is bad character and tends to create more of itself, causing more damage to the excuse giver with each tolerated instance.
If we’ve been a little more successful than other people, is because we always realised that the school of life was always open, and if you were not learning more you are falling behind.
We have found in a long life that one competitor is frequently enough to ruin a business.
The first chance you have to avoid a loss from a foolish loan is by refusing to make it; there is no second chance.
While no real money came down, my family gave me a good education and a marvelous example of how people should behave, and in the end that was more valuable than money. Being surrounded by the right values from the beginning is an immense treasure. Warrenhad that. It even has a financial advantage.
With so much money riding on reported numbers, human nature is to manipulate them. And with so many doing it, you get Serpico effects, where everyone rationalizes that it’s okay because everyone else is doing it. It is always thus.
I think it is undeniably true that the human brain must work in models. The trick is to have your brain work better than the other person’s brain because it understands the most fundamental models- ones that will do most work per unit.
The old culture had come out of poverty, out of English customs.
For years I have read the morning paper and harrumphed. There’s a lot to harrumph about now.
We don’t claim to have perfect morals, but at least we have a huge area of things that, while legal, are beneath us. We won’t do them. Currently, there’s a culture in Americathat says that anything that won’t send you to prison is OK.
Once you start doing something bad, then it’s easy to take the next step – and in the end, you’re a moral sewer.
When I run into a paradox I think either I’m a total horse’s ass to have gotten to this point, or I’m fruitfully near the edge of my discipline. It adds excitement to life to wonder which it is.
Cicero’s words also increased my personal satisfaction by supporting my long-standing rejection of a conventional point of view.
As I continued through Cicero’s pages, I found much more material celebrating my way of life...
At Berkshire Hathaway we do not like to compete against Chinese manufacturers.
I call myself the assistant cult leader.
Capitalism is a pretty brutal place.
When it gets into these spikes, with shortages and uproar and so forth, people go bananas, but that’s capitalism.
What matters most: passion or competence that was born in? Berkshireis full of people who have a peculiar passion for their own business. I would argue passion is more important than brain power.
Don’t confuse correlation and causation. Almost all great records eventually dwindle...