Warren Buffett > Quotes

“Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.”
― Warren Buffett

“The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.”
― Warren Buffett

“Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful”
― Warren Buffett

“Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
― Warren Buffett

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
― Warren Buffett

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minuted to ruin it. If you think about that you'll do things differently.”
― Warren Buffett

“You never know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out.”
― Warren Buffett

“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.”
― Warren Buffett

“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult. ”
― Warren Buffett

“If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.”
― Warren Buffett

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

“You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
― Warren Buffett

“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.”
― Warren Buffett

“If you’re in the luckiest one per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”
― Warren Buffett

“Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing”
― Warren Buffett

“It's nice to have a lot of money, but you know, you don't want to keep it around forever. I prefer buying things. Otherwise, it's a little like saving sex for your old age.”
― Warren Buffett

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
― Warren Buffett

“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”
― Warren Buffett

“Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill. ”
― Warren Buffett

“I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.”
― Warren Buffett

“There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn't that a little like saving up sex for your old age?”
― Warren Buffett

“I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.”
― Warren Buffett

“I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute. ”
― Warren Buffett

“The attitude of our managers vividly contrasts with that of the young man who married a tycoon's only child, a decidedly homely and dull lass. Relieved, the father called in his new son- in-law after the wedding and began to discuss the future:

Son, you're the boy I always wanted and never had. Here's a stock certificate for 50% of the company. You're my equal partner from now on.'

Thanks, dad.'

Now, what would you like to run? How about sales?'

I'm afraid I couldn't sell water to a man crawling in the Sahara.'

Well then, how about heading human relations?'

I really don't care for people.'

No problem, we have lots of other spots in the business. What would you like to do?'

Actually, nothing appeals to me. Why don't you just buy me out?”
― Warren Buffett

“Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.”
― Warren Buffett

“Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the models. Beware of geeks bearing formulas. ”
― Warren Buffett

“When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.”
― Warren Buffett

“You know ... you keep doing the same things and you keep getting the same result over and over again.”
― Warren Buffett

“Failing conventionally is the route to go; as a group, lemmings may have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press”
― Warren Buffett

“No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
― Warren Buffett

“I do know that when I am 60, I should be attempting to achieve different personal goals than those which had priority at age 20.”
― Warren Buffett

“Rule No. 1 : Never lose money. Rule No. 2 : Never forget Rule No. 1.”
― Warren Buffett

“An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it.”
― Warren Buffett

“I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.”
― Warren Buffett

“Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.”
― Warren Buffett

“In the long run managements stressing accounting appearance over economic substance usually achieve little of either.”
― Warren Buffett

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

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

“I won't close down a business of subnormal profitability merely to add a fraction of a point to our corporate returns. I also feel it inappropriate for even an exceptionally profitable company to fund an operation once it appears to have unending losses in prospect. Adam Smith would disagree with my first proposition and Karl Marx would disagree with my second; the middle ground is the only position that leaves me comfortable.”
― Warren Buffett

“Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.”
― Warren Buffett

“In some corner of the world they are probably still holding regular meetings of the Flat Earth Society. We derive no comfort because important people, vocal people, or great numbers of people agree with us. Nor do we derive comfort if they don't.”
― Warren Buffett

“A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.”
― Warren Buffett

“It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked.”
― Warren Buffett

“If you don’t know who is the sucker at the table, it’s you.”
― Warren Buffett

“I don't have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It's like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GDP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don't do that though. I don't use very many of those claim checks. There's nothing material I want very much. And I'm going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die.”
― Warren Buffett

“Gold is a way of going long on fear, and it has been a pretty good way of going long on fear from time to time. But you really have to hope people become more afraid in a year or two years than they are now. And if they become more afraid you make money, if they become less afraid you lose money, but the gold itself doesn’t produce anything.”
― Warren Buffett

“[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”
― Warren Buffett

“Writing a check separates a commitment from a conversation.”
― Warren Buffett