Monday, May 16, 2011

31. Warren Buffett quotes



Here are some quotes by Warren Buffett as reported by Mary Buffett. Warren Buffett was the richest man in the world for several years, together with Bill Gates. (That is how they become friends too.) Warren Buffett made his wealth in the capital markets. Now he has donated more than 80% of his wealth to the Philanthropic Foundation of Bill Gates, Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation. It seems to be the  largest private philanthropic organization of our days, similar to the older philanthropic organization of Rockefeller (oil industry), and the even oldest of Andrew Carnegie (steel industry).


1. Never be afraid to ask for too much when selling or offer too little when buying.






2. You cannot make a good deal with a bad person






3. It is easier to stay out of trouble than it is to get out of trouble.






4. Happiness does not buy you money






5. It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to lose it. If you think about that, you will do things differently.






6. The market, like the Lord, helps those that help themselves. But unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.






7. I do not try to jump over 7-foot bars; I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.






8. The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.






9. Marrying for money is probably a bad idea under any circumstances, but it is absolutely nuts if you are already rich.






10.It is not necesary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.






11.Money, to some extent, sometimes lets you be in more interesting environments. But it can not change how many people love you or how healthy you are.






12. You do not have to make money back the same way you lost it.






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






14. If principles become dated, they are no longer principles.






15. You have to think for yourself. It always amazes me how high-IQ people mindlessly imitate. I never get good ideas talking to other people.






16. You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other people's experience first when you can.






17. It is hard to teach a young dog old tricks.






18. It is only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked.






19. When ideas fail, words come in very handy.






20.Wouldn't it be great if we could buy love for 1 million? But the only way to be loved is to be lovable. You always get back more than you give away. If you do not give away any, you won't get any. There is nobody I know who commands the love of others who does not feel like a success. And I can not imagine people who are not loved feel very successful.






21. We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds, though I have learned to live with those also.






22. There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you do not like because you think it will look good on your resume. Is it not that like saving sex for you old age?






23. Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.






24. A public opinion poll is no substitute for thought.






25. Recommending something to be held for 30 years is a level of self-sacrifice you will rarely see in a monastery, let alone a brokerage house.






26. Wall Street makes its money on activity. You make your money on inactivity.






27. You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you do not do too many things wrong.






28, If you let yourself be undisciplined on the small things, you will probably be undisciplined on the large things as well.






29. The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs.






30.Imagine that you had a car and that was the only car you would have for your entire lifetime. Of course, you'd care for it well, changing the oil more frequently than necessary, driving carefully, etc. Now, consider that you only have one mind and one body. Prepare them for life, care for them. You can enhance your mind over time. A person's main asset is themselves. So preserve and enhance yourself.






31.When proper temperament joins up with the proper intellectual framework, then you get rational behaviour.






32.The fact that people are full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable.






33. Of the 7 deadly sins, envy is the silliest, because if you have it, you do not feel better. You feel worse. I 've had some good times with gluttony...we won't get into lust.






34. The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.






35. If at first you do succeed, quit trying.






36. Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.






37. That which is not worth doing at all, is not worth doing well.






38. We never look back. We just figure there is so much to look forward to, that there is no sense thinking of what we might have done. It just does not make any difference. You can only live life forward.






39.I want to be able to explain my mistakes, This means I do only the things I completely understand.






40. If you do not make mistakes, you can not make decisions.






41. If we can not find things within our circle of competence, we do not expand the circle. We will wait.






42. The key is that the market basically just sets prices, so it exists to serve you, not to instruct you.






43. The smartest side to take in a bidding war is the losing side.




44. What we learn from history is that people do not learn from history.






45. Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy. Profit from the folly rather than participate in it.






46. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You cannot produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.






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






48. I would be a bum on the street with a tin cup, if the markets were efficient.






49.Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.