Founder Quotes

“If I got any good ideas out of that or I think they're good ideas, I'll be glad to contribute them but the system will probably overdo some other things.”

“Take the high road; it's far less crowded.”

“When people tell me they've learned from experience, I tell them the trick is to learn from other people's experience.”

“Lethargy, bordering on sloth should remain the cornerstone of an investment style.”

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

“Generally, we have translated greater output in the few hours of work per week over the last century. And that's a good trend of the future. But we do have to have a system that, as output of goods and services keeps increasing per capita, that it takes care of the people who are willing to work and really are not getting by very well with a family on a 40-hour week.”

“Never give up searching for the job that you're passionate about.”

“It's almost impossible to overpay the truly extraordinary CEO... but the species is rare.”

“This economy doesn't work well without the lubrication of credit and trust.”

“People always ask me where they should go to work, and I always tell them to go to work for whom they admire the most.”

“The woman that comes in, takes the wastebasket away, she's paying 15.3 or whatever it is on payroll tax alone. I mean it is - I never had it so good.”

“It's easier to create money than to spend it.”

“If principles can become dated, they're not principles.”

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

“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.”

“Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.”

“It's much easier to stay out of trouble now than to get out of trouble later.”

“I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute.”

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

“I always say that in investing you want to buy stock in a company that has a business that's so good that an idiot can run it, because sooner or later one will. We have a country like that.”

“We have provided capital here with a couple of institutions recently. The Federal government did that in the '30s for the RFC and I think there could well be a proper role for government in that.”

“Enjoy your work and work for whom you admire.”

“Intensity is the price of excellence.”

“I think the FDIC was one of the great inventions of the American.”

“Other guys read Playboy. I read annual reports.”