More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Mark Gavagan
Read between
March 31 - May 12, 2019
CEOs seldom tell their shareholders that they have assembled a bunch of turkeys to run things.”
‘It's probably true that hard work never killed anyone, but I figure why take the chance.’ ”
What a manager must do is handle the basics well and not get diverted.”
‘All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there.’
Good investment ideas are rare, valuable and subject to competitive appropriation just as good product or business acquisition ideas are.
‘You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.’ ”
‘Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.’ (Or, to put it in less elegant terms, lemmings as a class may be derided but never does an individual lemming get criticized.)”
accounting is but an aid to business thinking, never a substitute for it.”
“The reaction of weak managements to weak operations is often weak
It has been far safer to steal large sums with a pen than small sums with a gun.”
If your actions are sensible, you are certain to get good results; in most such cases, leverage just moves things along faster.
You do not adequately protect yourself by being half awake while others are sleeping.”
Noah principle: predicting rain doesn’t count, building arks does.)”
‘the intellect should be the servant of the heart, but not its slave’
‘If something’s not worth doing at all, it’s not worth doing well.’)
‘When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.’
We prefer instead to focus on the economic characteristics of businesses that we wish to own and the personal characteristics of managers with whom we wish to associate - and then to hope we get lucky in finding the two in combination.”
They behave like the fellow in a switchblade fight who, after his opponent has taken a mighty swipe at his throat, exclaimed, ‘You never touched me.’ His adversary’s reply: ‘Just wait until you try to shake your head.’ ”
We are willing to look foolish as long as we don't feel we have acted foolishly.”
‘While the lamb may lie down with the lion, the lamb shouldn’t count on getting a whole lot of sleep.’
‘There's really nothing to it. Start as a billionaire and then buy an airline.’
“It has struck me that all men’s misfortunes spring from the single cause that they are unable to stay quietly in one room.”
‘price is what you pay; value is what you get.’
Customer: Thanks for putting me in XYZ stock at 5. I hear it’s up to 18. Broker: Yes, and that’s just the beginning. In fact, the company is doing so well now, that it’s an even better buy at 18 than it was when you made your purchase. Customer: Damn, I knew I should have waited.”
