Warren Buffett (b.1930) is an American investor, businessman, financier, and philanthropist. As chairman, CEO, and principal shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, a financial and industrial conglomerate that he has led since 1964, Buffett is one of the world’s wealthiest people.
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, where he grew up and continues to reside, Buffett is affectionately known to many as the “Oracle of Omaha.” He is an incredibly successful investor whose string of successes cannot be attributed to a stroke of luck. Throughout his long career, he has been made money with diverse investment strategies, but with a core philosophy that has remained unchanged—analyzing businesses, not just their stocks, and then buying stock in companies when their stock prices are down relative to intrinsic value.
As leaders of the American conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett and his longtime business partner, Charlie Munger, have earned enormous respect as brilliant investors. They oversee a vast empire of a sophisticated, sprawling collection of businesses and investments.
Buffett is one of the wealthiest persons in the world, and one of the world’s leading philanthropists. Despite his colossal wealth, he is the antithesis of an ostentatious billionaire—he lives parsimoniously, drives a humble car, and still resides in the unpretentious home he bought in 1958 for $31,500. In 2006, he announced plans to give 83 percent of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
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When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is usually the reputation of the business that remains intact.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Business, Management
The rich invest in time; the poor invest in money.
—Warren Buffett
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
Topics: Management
You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Success & Failure, Success
If you can tell me who your heroes are, I can tell you how you’re going to turn out in life.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Life
There’s no use running if you’re on the wrong road.
—Warren Buffett
If you don’t know jewelry, know the jeweler.
—Warren Buffett
There’s no use running if you’re on the wrong road.
—Warren Buffett
Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Money
The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Simplicity
A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.
—Warren Buffett
It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.
—Warren Buffett
Charlie [Munger] realizes that it is difficult to find something that is really good. So, if you say ‘No’ ninety percent of the time, you’re not missing much in the world.
—Warren Buffett
Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results.
—Warren Buffett
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
The less the prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we must conduct our own.
—Warren Buffett
You’re neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You’re right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right—and that’s the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don’t have to worry about anybody else.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Worry, Effort
Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Patience
You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.
—Warren Buffett
The perfect amount of money to leave children is enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they would do nothing.
—Warren Buffett
Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Risk
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
It’s never a good idea to wait to do anything; given the uncertainty of life, just get going.
—Warren Buffett
In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Business
The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.
—Warren Buffett
Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Values, Value
I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
—Warren Buffett
I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.
—Warren Buffett
We don’t get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we’ll wait, we’ll wait indefinitely.
—Warren Buffett
Occasionally, a man must rise above principles.
—Warren Buffett
The only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good.
—Warren Buffett
A horse that can count to 10 is a remarkable horse—not a remarkable mathematician.
—Warren Buffett
A girl in a convertible is worth five in the phonebook.
—Warren Buffett
Can you really explain to a fish what it’s like to walk on land? One day on land is worth a thousand years of talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Experience
A public opinion poll is no substitute for thought.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Opinion
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
Topics: Reputation, Character, Entrepreneurs, Wisdom
I really like my life. I’ve arranged my life so that I can do what I want.
—Warren Buffett
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
There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Humanity, Human Nature
We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Pleasure
Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Action
If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.
—Warren Buffett
One’s objective should be to get it right, get it quick, get it out, and get it over… your problem won’t improve with age.
—Warren Buffett
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
If you advertise an interest in buying collies, a lot of people will call hoping to sell you their cocker spaniels.
—Warren Buffett
Managers and investors alike must understand that accounting numbers are the beginning, not the end, of business valuation.
—Warren Buffett
It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Business
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you will do things differently.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Reputation
When a management team 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
Topics: Management, Business
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