Warren Buffett Quotes

111 Sourced Quotes

Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that Price is what you pay; value is what you get. Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.

Warren Buffett
Rule No.1: Never lose money.
Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.

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
Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.

Warren Buffett
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.

Warren Buffett
We have tried occasionally to buy toads at bargain prices with results that have been chronicled in past reports. Clearly our kisses fell flat. We have done well with a couple of princes — but they were princes when purchased. At least our kisses didn't turn them into toads. And, finally, we have occasionally been quite successful in purchasing fractional interests in easily-identifiable princes at toad-like prices.

Warren Buffett
Capitalism is all about somebody coming and trying to take the castle. Now what you need is.... you need a castle that has some durable competitive advantage — some castle that has a moat around it.

Warren Buffett
We can afford to lose money - even a lot of money. But we can't afford to lose reputation - even a shred of reputation.

Warren Buffett
A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful.

Warren Buffett
In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses-How to Value a Business, and How to Think about Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business who's earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now.

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

Warren Buffett
If you invested in a very low cost index fund — where you don't put the money in at one time, but average in over 10 years — you'll do better than 90% of people who start investing at the same time.

Warren Buffett
You want to be greedy when others are fearful. You want to be fearful when others are greedy. It's that simple. … They're pretty fearful. In fact, in my adult lifetime, I don't think I've ever seen people as fearful economically as they are right now.

Warren Buffett
After 25 years of buying and supervising a great variety of businesses, Charlie and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them. To the extent we have been successful, it is because we concentrated on identifying one-foot hurdles that we could step over because we acquired any ability to clear seven-footers.

Warren Buffett
Accounting consequences do not influence our operating or capital-allocation decisions. When acquisition costs are similar, we much prefer to purchase $2 of earnings that is not reportable by us under standard accounting principles than to purchase $1 of earnings that is reportable.

Warren Buffett
Failing conventionally is the route to go; as a group, lemmings may have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press

Warren Buffett
The best asset is your own self. You can become to an enormous degree the person you want to be

Warren Buffett
Over the years, Charlie [Munger, Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman] and I have observed many accounting-based frauds of staggering size. Few of the perpetrators have been punished; many have not even been censured. It has been far safer to steal large sums with pen than small sums with a gun.

Warren Buffett
A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.

Warren Buffett
I make no attempt to forecast the general market — my efforts are devoted to finding undervalued securities. However, I do believe that widespread public belief in the Inevitability of profits from investments in stocks will lead to eventual trouble. Should this occur, prices, but not intrinsic values in my opinion, of even undervalued securities can be expected to be substantially affected.

Warren Buffett
We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.

Warren Buffett
When returns on capital are ordinary, an earn-more-by-putting-up-more record is no great managerial achievement. You can get the same result personally while operating from your rocking chair. Just quadruple the capital you commit to a savings account and you will quadruple your earnings. You would hardly expect hosannas for that particular accomplishment. Yet, retirement announcements regularly sing the praises of CEOs who have, say, quadrupled earnings of their widget company during their reign — with no one examining whether this gain was attributable simply to many years of retained earnings and the workings of compound interest.

Warren Buffett
Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

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
Ben's Mr. Market allegory may seem out-of-date in today's investment world, in which most professionals and academicians talk of efficient markets, dynamic hedging and betas. Their interest in such matters is understandable, since techniques shrouded in mystery clearly have value to the purveyor of investment advice. After all, what witch doctor has ever achieved fame and fortune by simply advising "Take two aspirins"?

Warren Buffett