The market system rewards me outlandishly for what I do, but that doesn’t mean I’m any more deserving of a good life than a teacher or a doctor or someone who fights in Afghanistan.
The stockmarket is a semi-psychotic creature given to extremes of elation and despair.
A pin lies in wait for every bubble and when the two eventually meet, a new wave of investors learns some very old lessons.
What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.
Most business mistakes are irreversible setbacks, but you get another chance. There are two things in life that you don’t get another chance at – marrying the wrong person and what you do with your children.
Our goal is to find an outstanding business at a sensible price, not a mediocre business at a bargain price.
We’re perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff.
We’ve had public companies in the past in that business and they bleed. We’ve got a lot more blood than they do.
I always invest in companies an idiot could run, because one day one will.
You have to be able to communicate in life and probably schools underemphasize that. If you can’t talk to people or write, you’re giving up your potential.
Working with people who cause your stomach to churn seems much like marrying for money – probably a bad idea under any circumstances, but absolute madness if you are already rich.
Occasionally, a man must rise above principles.
All there is to investing is picking good stocks at good times and staying with them as long as they remain good companies.
Buy stocks like you buy your groceries, not like you buy your perfume.
As one of my older friends says, “Nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be.” Let’s take a stab at it, anyway.
We will prosper or suffer in controlled investments in relation to the operating performances of our businesses – we will not attempt to profit by playing various games in the securities markets.
You could be somewhere where the mail was delayed three weeks and do just fine investing.
What we really want to do is buy businesses that we would be happy to own forever.
Investing in a market where people believe in efficiency is like playing bridge with someone who has been told it doesn’t do any good to look at the cards.
The best education you can get is investing in yourself, and that doesn’t mean college or university.