Warren Buffett (Businessperson)

Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results.

— Warren Buffett good

To [Buffett] the perfect amount to leave children is "enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing."

— Warren Buffett money

One of RJR's largest shareholders, he knew tobacco and liked it. "I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business," he said. "It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty."

— Warren Buffett business

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 is 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 GNP 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 life

If you understood a business perfectly and the future of the business, you would need very little in the way of a margin of safety. So, the more vulnerable the business is, assuming you still want to invest in it, the larger margin of safety you'd need. If you're driving a truck across a bridge that says it holds 10,000 pounds and you've got a 9,800 pound vehicle, if the bridge is 6 inches above the crevice it covers, you may feel okay, but if it's over the Grand Canyon, you may feel you want a little larger margin of safety...

— Warren Buffett future

Investors making purchases in an overheated market need to recognize that it may often take an extended period for the value of even an outstanding company to catch up with the price they paid.

— Warren Buffett value

We don't get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we'll wait, we'll wait indefinitely.

— Warren Buffett right

Success in investing doesn't correlate with I.Q. once you're above the level of 125. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.

— Warren Buffett intelligence

If I was running $1 million today, or $10 million for that matter, I'd be fully invested. Anyone who says that size does not hurt investment performance is selling. The highest rates of return I've ever achieved were in the 1950s. I killed the Dow. You ought to see the numbers. But I was investing peanuts then. It's a huge structural advantage not to have a lot of money. I think I could make you 50% a year on $1 million. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.

— Warren Buffett money

We're more comfortable in that kind of business. It means we miss a lot of very big winners. But we wouldn't know how to pick them out anyway. It also means we have very few big losers - and that's quite helpful over time. We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a certain payoff.

— Warren Buffett time

The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don't have to swing at everything—you can wait for your pitch. The problem when you're a money manager is that your fans keep yelling, "Swing, you bum!"

— Warren Buffett money

Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

— Warren Buffett time

It's class warfare. My class is winning, but they shouldn't be.

— Warren Buffett war

You couldn't advance in a finance department in this country unless you taught that the world was flat.

— Warren Buffett art

Take me as an example. I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I'd been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can't run very fast. I'm not particularly strong. I'd probably end up as some wild animal's dinner.

— Warren Buffett art

The 400 of us pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you're in the luckiest 1 percent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 percent.

— Warren Buffett art

I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.

— Warren Buffett business

It's like a tapeworm eating at our economic body.

— Warren Buffett body

If you invested in a very low cost index fund – where you don’t put the money in at one time, but average in over 10 years –you’ll do better than 90% of people who start investing at the same time.

— Warren Buffett time

Buffett writes an annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.

— Warren Buffett write

An irresistable footnote: in 1971, pension fund managers invested a record 122% of net funds available in equities - at full prices they couldn't buy enough of them. In 1974, after the bottom had fallen out, they committed a then record low of 21% to stocks.

— Warren Buffett man

We have tried occasionally to buy toads at bargain prices with results that have been chronicled in past reports. Clearly our kisses fell flat. We have done well with a couple of princes—but they were princes when purchased. At least our kisses didn’t turn them into toads. And, finally, we have occasionally been quite successful in purchasing fractional interests in easily-identifiable princes at toad-like prices.

— Warren Buffett success

It’s simply to say thatand investors alike must understand that accounting numbers are the beginning, not the end, of business valuation.

— Warren Buffett business

When .

— Warren Buffett

's Mr. Market allegory may seem out-of-date in today's investment world, in which most professionals and academicians talk of efficient markets, dynamic hedging and betas. Their interest in such matters is understandable, since techniques shrouded in mystery clearly have value to the purveyor of investment advice. After all, what witch doctor has ever achieved fame and fortune by simply advising "Take two aspirins"?

— Warren Buffett men

Over the years, Charlie [Munger, Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman] and I have observed many accounting-based frauds of staggering size. Few of the perpetrators have been punished; many have not even been censured. It has been far safer to steal large sums with pen than small sums with a gun.

— Warren Buffett man

In fact, when we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.

— Warren Buffett men

For example: (1) As if governed by Newton's First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated.

— Warren Buffett time

The most common cause of low prices is pessimism—some times [] pervasive, some times[] specific to a company or industry. We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism but because we like the prices it produces. It's optimism that is the enemy of the rational buyer.

— Warren Buffett time

Our stay-put behavior reflects our view that the stock market serves as a relocation center at which money is moved from the active to the patient.

— Warren Buffett money

We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.

— Warren Buffett children

The strategy we've adopted precludes our following standard diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the strategy must be riskier than that employed by more conventional investors. We disagree. We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it. In stating this opinion, we define risk, using dictionary terms, as "the possibility of loss or injury."

— Warren Buffett business

In a bull market, one must avoid the error of the preening duck that quacks boastfully after a torrential rainstorm, thinking that its paddling skills have caused it to rise in the world. A right-thinking duck would instead compare its position after the downpour to that of the other ducks on the pond.

— Warren Buffett world

But now for the final exam: If you expect to be a net saver during the next five years, should you hope for a higher or lower stock market during that period? Many investors get this one wrong. Even though they are going to be net buyers of stocks for many years to come, they are elated when stock prices rise and depressed when they fall. In effect, they rejoice because prices have risen for the "hamburgers" they will soon be buying. This reaction makes no sense. Only those who will be sellers of equities in the near future should be happy at seeing stocks rise. Prospective purchasers should much prefer sinking prices.

— Warren Buffett hope

Our future rates of gain will fall far short of those achieved in the past. Berkshire's capital base is now simply too large to allow us to earn truly outsized returns. If you believe otherwise, you should consider a career in sales but avoid one in mathematics (bearing in mind that there are really only three kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who can't).

— Warren Buffett people

Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. The calculation of intrinsic value, though, is not so simple. As our definition suggests, intrinsic value is an estimate rather than a precise figure, and it is additionally an estimate that must be changed if interest rates move or forecasts of future cash flows are revised.

— Warren Buffett life

We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet.

— Warren Buffett age

Those who attended [the annual meeting] last year saw your Chairman pitch to . This encounter proved to be the titanic duel that the sports world had long awaited. After the first few pitches—which were not my best, but when have I ever thrown my best?—I fired a brushback at Ernie just to let him know who was in command. Ernie charged the mound, and I charged the plate. But a clash was avoided because we became exhausted before reaching each other.

— Warren Buffett world

The line separatingand , which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities—that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future—will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There's a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.

— Warren Buffett art

Instead, we try to apply 's 2,600-year-old equation to opportunities in which we have reasonable confidence as to how many birds are in the bush and when they will emerge (a formulation that my grandsons would probably update to "A girl in a convertible is worth five in the phonebook.").

— Warren Buffett confidence

But a pin lies in wait for every bubble. And when the two eventually meet, a new wave of investors learns some very old lessons: First, many in Wall Street

— Warren Buffett lies

After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

— Warren Buffett you

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

— Warren Buffett fear

Long ago,gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the , explaining later, "I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men." If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.

— Warren Buffett work

The worst sort of business is one that grows rapidly, requires significant capital to engender the growth, and then earns little or no money. Think airlines. Here a durable competitive advantage has proven elusive ever since the days of the Wright Brothers. Indeed, if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.

— Warren Buffett success

I've reluctantly discarded the notion of my continuing to manage the portfolio after my death—abandoning my hope to give new meaning to the term "thinking outside the box."

— Warren Buffett hope

Long ago,taught me that “Price is what you pay; value is what you get.” Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.

— Warren Buffett value

Putting people into homes, though a desirable goal, shouldn’t be our country’s primary objective. Keeping them in their homes should be the ambition.

— Warren Buffett people

We never want to count on the kindness of strangers in order to meet tomorrow’s obligations. When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night’s sleep for the chance of extra profits.

— Warren Buffett kindness

Upon leaving [the derivatives business], our feelings about the business mirrored a line in a country song: "I liked you better before I got to know you so well."

— Warren Buffett business

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

— Warren Buffett time

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

— Warren Buffett you

In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

— Warren Buffett war

Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.

— Warren Buffett you

Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.

— Warren Buffett money

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 people

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

— Warren Buffett you

I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.

— Warren Buffett money

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 self

Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction.

— Warren Buffett destruction

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.

— Warren Buffett you

Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.

— Warren Buffett people

I bought a company in the mid-'90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I've made lots of dumb decisions. That's part of the game.

— Warren Buffett art

The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.

— Warren Buffett

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

— Warren Buffett light

I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.

— Warren Buffett

If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end - people like myself - should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it.

— Warren Buffett people

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.

— Warren Buffett people

Economic medicine that was previously meted out by the cupful has recently been dispensed by the barrel. These once unthinkable dosages will almost certainly bring on unwelcome after-effects. Their precise nature is anyone's guess, though one likely consequence is an onslaught of inflation.

— Warren Buffett nature

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

— Warren Buffett world

You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in - in 2007, we just didn't know it was uncertain. It was - uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn't know it.

— Warren Buffett time

We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.

— Warren Buffett fear

I sent one e-mail in my life. I sent it to Jeff Raikes at Microsoft, and it ended up in court in Minneapolis, so I am one for one.

— Warren Buffett life

Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it's not going to get the business.

— Warren Buffett business

When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.

— Warren Buffett men

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you dont do too many things wrong.

— Warren Buffett life

Honesty is a very expensive gift – don’t expect it from cheap people.

— Warren Buffett people

Honesty is a very expensive gift, Dont expect it from cheap people.

— Warren Buffett people

You can’t make a good deal with a bad person.

— Warren Buffett good

If past history is all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.

— Warren Buffett history

Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.

— Warren Buffett you

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