Richer, Wiser, Happier Quotes

“Who you spend your time with is probably the most important thing in life,”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Munger has also learned to control certain toxic emotions that would corrode his enjoyment of life. “Crazy anger. Crazy resentment. Avoid all that stuff,” he tells me. “I don’t let it run. I don’t let it start.” The same goes for envy, which he considers the dumbest of the seven deadly sins because it’s not even fun. He also disdains the tendency to view oneself as a victim, and he has no patience for whining. When I ask if he has a mental process that helps him to defuse self-defeating emotions, he replies, “I know that anger is stupid. I know that resentment is stupid. I know self-pity is stupid. So I don’t do them.… I’m trying not to be stupid every day, all day.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“There are four things that we know improve brain health and brain function,” says Shubin Stein. “Meditation, exercise, sleep, and nutrition.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Inspired in part by Steinhardt, Nygren conducts a “devil’s advocate review” before buying any stock. One analyst on his team presents the bullish case. Another is tasked with “putting together the strongest bearish case.… By better understanding what we’re betting against, we’re more likely to make the right decision.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“If you’re going to be in this game for the long pull, which is the way to do it, you better be able to handle a fifty percent decline without fussing too much about it. And so my lesson to all of you is, conduct your life so that you can handle the fifty percent decline with aplomb and grace. Don’t try to avoid it. It will come. In fact, I would say if it doesn’t come, you’re not being aggressive enough.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“You get a lot of A’s and B’s in school. In the stock market, you get a lot of F’s. And if you’re right six or seven times out of ten, you’re very good.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Devil’s advocate reviews. Premortems. Conversations with a skeptical discussion partner. A cognitive checklist that reminds us of our biggest biases and our past mistakes.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Instead of trotting out the usual bland platitudes about the secrets of success and happiness, he provided an inspired illustration of how to apply the principle of inversion. He gave the students a series of “prescriptions for guaranteed misery in life,” recommending that they should be unreliable, avoid compromise, harbor resentments, seek revenge, indulge in envy, “ingest chemicals,” become addicted to alcohol, neglect to “learn vicariously from the good and bad experience of others,” cling defiantly to their existing beliefs, and “stay down” when struck by the “first, second, or third severe reverse in the battle of life.”
― William Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“I could lose all my money, and I could still go to these files and say, ‘Well, it’s not like I lived my life for nothing. Look at the people whose lives I’ve changed.’ ” Van Den Berg points to his trove of letters and says, “That’s my bank account.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“If all you succeed in doing in life is getting rich by buying little pieces of paper, it’s a failed life. Life is more than being shrewd in wealth accumulation. —Charlie Munger”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Buffett charged no annual management fee but collected a performance fee of 25 percent of any profits over an annual “hurdle” of 6 percent. If he made a return of 6 percent or less, he didn’t get paid a dime.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“I don’t have any wonderful insights that other people don’t have. I just have slightly more consistently than others avoided idiocy. Other people are trying to be smart. All I’m trying to be is non-idiotic. I find that all you have to do to get ahead in life is to be non-idiotic and live a long time. It’s harder to be non-idiotic than most people think.”
― William Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Once he felt “completely secure” about his financial future, no amount of money he could earn would make any difference to him. “I’m the richest guy in the world because I’m content with what I have,” says Van Den Berg. “I feel wealthier not because I have more money but because I’ve got health, good friendships, I’ve got a great family. Prosperity takes all of these things into consideration: health, wealth, happiness, peace of mind. That’s what a prosperous person is, not just a lot of money. That doesn’t mean anything.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“It’s frightening to think that you might not know something, but more frightening to think that, by and large, the world is run by people who have faith that they know exactly what’s going on.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Another common mistake that tilts the odds against many unsuspecting investors is to pay lavish fees to mediocre fund managers, stockbrokers, and financial advisers whose performance doesn’t justify the expense.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“A partner who is not subservient and who himself is extremely logical . . . is probably the best mechanism you can have.” Munger, the ideal foil, has shot down so many investment ideas that Buffett refers to him as “The Abominable No-Man.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Similarly, if you’re looking to make a thoughtful investment in a well-managed fund, you might start by asking, “How can I invest blindly in a lousy fund that’s a disaster waiting to happen?” That question would lead you to list all of the pitfalls that investors routinely overlook—for example, outrageous fees, dangerous exposure to the most popular and priciest sectors of the market, and a recent streak of head-spinning returns that will almost surely prove unsustainable”
― William Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“If you just go around and identify all of the disasters and say, ‘What caused that?’ and try to avoid it, it turns out to be a very simple way to find opportunities and avoid troubles.”
― William Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“The Art of Subtraction If there is one habit that all of the investors in this chapter have in common, it’s this: They focus almost exclusively on what they’re best at and what matters most to them. Their success derives from this fierce insistence on concentrating deeply in a relatively narrow area while disregarding countless distractions that could interfere with their pursuit of excellence. Jason Zweig, an old friend who is a personal finance columnist at the Wall Street Journal and the editor of a revised edition of The Intelligent Investor, once wrote to me, “Think of Munger and Miller and Buffett: guys who just won’t spend a minute of time or an iota of mental energy doing or thinking about anything that doesn’t make them better. . . . Their skill is self-honesty. They don’t lie to themselves about what they are and aren’t good at. Being honest with yourself like that has to be part of the secret. It’s so hard and so painful to do, but so important.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life. Think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”XI”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“how to prepare for the future instead of fooling ourselves into believing we can predict it.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Kahn’s answer: “Investing is about preserving more than anything. That must be your first thought, not looking for large gains. If you achieve only reasonable returns and suffer minimal losses, you will become a wealthy man and will surpass any gambler friends you may have. This is also a good way to cure your sleeping problems.”
― William Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“This idea of nonattachment can sound cold or unnatural. But a recognition of impermanence has its benefits. For one”
― William Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Guy Spier, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, moved his family from Manhattan to a rented house in a quiet neighborhood of Zurich, where it’s easier for his beautiful but distractible mind to resemble “a calm pond.” Spier’s office, which is a short tram-ride from his home, has a library in which he doesn’t permit himself a phone or a computer. He has consciously designed his physical environment to support contemplation.”
― William Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Despite his inexperience, he understood enough about economic history, financial markets, and human nature to recognize that overwhelming pessimism would eventually give way to unbridled optimism. Even in the darkest of times, he never forgot that the sun also rises.”
― William Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“One of his favorite quotes is from the philosopher Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“The key, then, is to identify situations in which there’s a particularly large spread between the price and the value of the business. That spread gives you a margin of safety, which Greenblatt (like Graham and Buffett) regards as the single most important concept in investing.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Buffett himself is a grand master of simplification. Writing to his shareholders in 1977, he laid out his four criteria for selecting any stock: “We want the business to be (1) one that we can understand, (2) with favorable long-term prospects, (3) operated by honest and competent people, and (4) available at a very attractive price.” These may not strike you as earth-shattering secrets. But it’s hard to beat this distillation of eternal truths about what makes a stock desirable.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life

“Rule 1: Clone like crazy. Rule 2: Hang out with people who are better than you. Rule 3: Treat life as a game, not as a survival contest or a battle to the death. Rule 4: Be in alignment with who you are; don’t do what you don’t want to do or what’s not right for you. Rule 5: Live by an inner scorecard; don’t worry about what others think of you; don’t be defined by external validation.”
― William P. Green, Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World's Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life