A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.
It's not given to human beings to have such talent that they can just know everything about everything all the time. But it is given to human beings who work hard at it – who look and sift the world for a mispriced bet – that they can occasionally find one.
Determine value apart from price; progress apart from activity; wealth apart from size.
Never invest in a business you can’t understand.
Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.
When investing, pessimism is your friend, euphoria the enemy.
I do not like debt and do not like to invest in companies that have too much debt, particularly long-term debt. With long-term debt, increases in interest rates can drastically affect company profits and make future cash flows less predictable.
We have usually made our best purchases when apprehensions about some macro event were at a peak. Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist.
The wise man once said, ‘Invest young.’
A great investment opportunity occurs when a marvelous business encounters a one-time huge, but solvable problem.
Valuing a business is part art and part science.
The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.
If you buy something because it’s undervalued, then you have to think about selling it when it approaches your calculation of its intrinsic value. That’s hard. But if you buy a few great companies, then you can sit on your ass. That’s a good thing.
Investing is where you find a few great companies and then sit on your ass.
If you took our top fifteen decisions out, we’d have a pretty average record. It wasn’t hyperactivity, but a hell of a lot of patience. You stuck to your principles and when opportunities came along, you pounced on them with vigor.