Founder Quotes

“You don't need to be an expert in order to achieve satisfactory investment returns. But if you aren't, you must recognize your limitations and follow a course certain to work reasonably well. Keep things simple and don't swing for the fences.”

“Do not take yearly results too seriously. Instead, focus on four or five-year averages.”

“Honesty is a very expensive gift, Don't expect it from cheap people.”

“I choose to work with every single person that I work with. That ends up being the most important factor. I don't interact with people I don't like or admire. That's the key. It's like marrying.”

“So smile when you read a headline that says "Investors lose as market falls." Edit it in your mind to "Disinvestors lose as market falls-but investors gain." Though writers often forget this truism, there is a buyer for every seller and what hurts one necessarily helps the other. (As they say in golf matches: "Every putt makes someone happy.")”

“Don't pass up something that's attractive today because you think you will find something way more attractive tomorrow.”

“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.”

“A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.”

“We look for things I can understand. A lot of businesses I don't understand.”

“Well, one time some attractive woman sat next to Charlie and asked him what he owed his success to, and, unfortunately, she insisted on a one word answer. He had a speech prepared that would have gone on for several hours. But when forced to boil it down to one word, he said that was "rational". You know, he comes equipped for rationality, and he applies it in business. He doesn't always apply it elsewhere, but he applies it in business and that has made him a huge business success.”

“If you are not willing to own a stock for 10 years, do not even think about owning it for 10 minutes.”

“The approach and strategies are very similar in that you gather all the information you can and then keep adding to that base of information as things develop. You do whatever the probabilities indicated based on the knowledge that you have at that time, but you are always willing to modify your behaviour or your approach as you get new information. In bridge, you behave in a way that gets the best from your partner. And in business, you behave in the way that gets the best from your managers and your employees.”

“The purpose of life is to be loved by as many people as possible among those you want to have love you”

“With a wonderful business, you can figure out what will happen; you can't figure out when it will happen. You don't want to focus on when, you want to focus on what. If you're right about what, you don't have to worry about when”

“There's nothing inappropriate about having debt in America. It's what helped us grow over time. And it's when debt gets out of control that you worry.”

“Growth and value investing are joined at the hip.”

“I like to buy things I can understand. I do a lot of research on things.”

“A newspaper that reduces its coverage of the news important to its community is certain to reduce its readership as well”

“The good thing is, we have household formation in this country.”

“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.”

“Unless your answers are clearly better, copy the answers of your betters.”

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

“Investment philosophy is the clear understanding that by owning shares of stocks he owns businesses, not pieces of paper.”

“I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.”

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