Investment Quotes

Investing in innovation, which was my broad theme talking to [Warren Buffett ], that included health vaccines, it included energy and education.

It is no contradiction - the most important single thing we can do to stimulate investment in today's economy is to raise consumption by major reduction ofindividualincometaxrates.

You cannot make a cheap palace.

You pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus.

In the end, alchemy, whether it is metallurgical or financial, fails. A base business can not be transformed into a golden business by tricks of accounting or capital structure. The man claiming to be a financial alchemist may become rich. But gullible investors rather than business achievements will usually be the source of his wealth.

At some point, that risk-taking private capital can take over, and have patents and trade secrets and things that let them lead the way, which happened with the steam engine and some other things, although with energy, the time of adoption is a lot longer than it is with, say, IT products or even medical advances, like drugs and vaccines.

What we really want to do is buy businesses that we would be happy to own forever.

In my view, investing in public libraries is an investment in the nation's future.

We need to throw the resources at this that are necessary. But like I say, we are not spending money. I mean, if we buy these assets intelligently, the United States Treasury will make money. I mean, it's borrowing money. It's just a few percent a year.

Don't wait to buy land, buy land and wait.

To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. You must supply the emotional discipline.

[High income tax rates] not only check consumption but discourage investment and encourage...the avoidance of taxes [rather] than the production of goods.[...]Our present tax system...reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking.

Charlie and I decided long ago that in an investment lifetime, it's too hard to make hundreds of smart decisions. That judgment became ever more compelling as Berkshire's capital mushroomed and the universe of investments that could significantly affect our results shrank dramatically. Therefore, we adopted a strategy that required our being smart and not too smart at that, only a very few times. Indeed, we now settle for one good idea a year.

Time spent with a potential leader is an investment.

Believing that fundamental conditions of the country are sound and there is nothing in the business situation to warrant the destruction of values that has taken place on the exchanges during the past week, my son and I have for some days been purchasing sound common stocks. We are continuing and will continue our purchases in substantial amounts at levels which we believe represent sound investment values.

Take the probability of loss times the amount of possible loss from the probability of gain times the amount of possible gain. That is what we're trying to do. It's imperfect, but that's what it's all about.

Buy stocks like you buy your groceries, not like you buy your perfume.

I have plenty of money, unlike other Hollywood celebrities or athletes that have not invested well.

The most important investment you can make is in yourself. Very few people get anything like their potential horsepower translated into the actual horsepower of their output in life. Potential exceeds realization for many people...The best asset is your own self. You can become to an enormous degree the person you want to be.

Investors should remember that their scorecard is not computed using Olympic-diving methods: Degree-of-difficulty doesn't count. If you are right about a business whose value is largely dependent on a single key factor that is both easy to understand and enduring, the payoff is the same as if you had correctly analyzed an investment alternative characterized by many constantly shifting and complex variables.

An investment in education always pays the highest returns.

The financial calculus that Charlie and I employ would never permit our trading a good night's sleep for a shot at a few extra percentage points of return. I've never believed in risking what my friends and family have and need in order to pursue what they don't have and don't need.

That's why the American Recovery & Reinvestment Plan won't just throw money at our problems, we'll invest in what works

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.

The stock market has spoiled more appetites than bad cooking.

Would your reply possibly be this? Well, it all depends on what my tax rate will be on the gain you're saying we're going to make. If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of 1 percent. Only in Grover Norquist's imagination does such a response exist.

Mr. Market is your servant, not your guide.

Instead of buying airplanes and playing around like some of our competitors, we've rolled almost everything back to the company.

The greatest investment a young person can make is in their own education, in their own mind. Because money comes and goes. Relationships come and go. But what you learn once stays with you forever.

The trouble with land is that they're not making it anymore.

It is better to be a lender than a spender.

Sound investing can make you very wealthy if you're not in too big a hurry

An education is the investment with the greatest returns.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. When it comes to investing, nothing will pay off more than educating yourself. Do the necessary research, study and analysis before making any investment decisions.

Real estate cannot be lost or stolen, nor can it be carried away. Purchased with common sense, paid for in full, and managed with reasonable care, it is about the safest investment in the world.

Our present tax system ... exerts too heavy a drag on growth ... It reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking ... The present tax load ... distorts economic judgments and channels an undue amount of energy into efforts to avoidtaxliabilities.

My father taught me to always do more than you get paid for as an investment in your future.

Probably the greatest single obstacle to the progress and happiness of the American people lies in the willingness of so many men to invest their time and money in multiplying competitive industries instead of opening up new fields, and putting their money into lines of industry and development that are needed.

We paired this announcement of the R&D [commitment] with the so-called Breakthrough Energy Coalition, which is 27 [major investors] saying, "Hey, we'll put significant money into [energy innovations] when they're ready to spin out probably into startup companies."

Time properly invested is worth a fortune.

The government is somewhat inept, but the private sector is inept in general. How many companies do venture capitalists invest in that go poorly? By far most of them. However, every once in a while a Google or a Microsoft comes out, so people keep giving them money.

I have always cautioned partners that I considered three years a minimum in determining whether we were "performing".

Take the money in your wallet and invest it in your mind. And in return, your mind will fill up your wallet!

I argue with wife over what little pieces of real estate investments we should try to pay on and hold, and which to let go back. We always said, "Put it in land, and you can always walk on it." We did, but no buyers would walk on it with us.

Trust me: it's cool to invest.

Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you're flying high at first, but it won't take long before you feel the impact.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools.

Solyndra is a great investment in our future

Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.

Money makes money. And the money that makes money makes more money.

Money is of a prolific generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more.

The dumbest reason in the world to buy a stock is because it's going up.

We invested an additional $12 billion into community banks, because we know community banks are in the community, and understand the needs and desires of that community as well as the talent and capacity of community.

There is no staff. I make all the investment decisions and I do all my own analysis.

In a democratic scheme, money invested in the promotion of learning gives a tenfold return to the people even as a seed sown in good soil returns a luxuriant crop.

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.

Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble.

It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

I know different ways of looking at things. I have my stockholders, and I feel a very keen responsibility to the shareholders, but I feel that the main responsibility I have to them is to have the stock appreciate. And you only have it appreciate by reinvesting as much as you can back in the business. And that's what we've done... and that has been my philosophy on running the business.

Shortly after I met my mentor he asked me, ‘Mr. Rohn, how much money have you saved and invested over the last six years?’ And I said, ‘None.’ He then asked, ‘Who sold you on that plan?’