Warren Buffett Quotes

As one of my older friends says, "Nostalgia just isn't what it used to be." Let's take a stab at it, anyway.

I always invest in companies an idiot could run, because one day one will.

SUPPOSE that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. This is a good one, he says enthusiastically. I'm in it, and I think you should be, too.

If horses had controlled investment decisions, there would have been no auto industry.

Is management rational?

I have three boxes on my desk: In, Out, and Too Hard.

Exercise humility and restraint.

I wouldn’t mind going to jail if I had three cellmates who played bridge

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.

If I were the treasury secretary or head of the Fed, you know, I would try to scare the hell the out of the private sector and say, you better save this because you're going down with the ship.

I think what people understand there probably - well, they were hoping the private sector would do it [rescuing AIG ].

I think I could make you fifty percent a year on one million dollars. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.

I put heavy weight on certainty. It's not risky to buy securities at a fraction of what they're worth.

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

I think that trying to invest through 535 people is a tough job, you know, and so I would give more latitude.

It's the deleveraging that's going on right now that has caused the credit crisis.

If you own the only newspaper in town, up until the last five years or so, you have pricing power and you didn't have to go to the office.

What's going to happen - things we're doing are going to have some inflationary consequences.

When Berkshire buys common stock, we approach the transaction as if we were buying into a private business.

We try to buy businesses with good-to-superb underlying economics run by honest and able people and buy them at sensible prices. That's all I'm trying to do.

I sent one e-mail in my life. I sent it to Jeff Raikes at Microsoft, and it ended up in court in Minneapolis, so I am one for one.

I mean, you may be very mad at some guy that walked away with a huge golden parachute, but that really isn't the important thing.

The U.S. Treasury has got borrowing costs like nobody else has.

I think people - what people want to do is make [economy] get worse.

I mean, you know, you're not going to change the human animal. And the human animal really doesn't get a lot smarter.

It's going to be tough because the economy is going to be getting worse for a while. And it might fall off a cliff if this doesn't pass. But nobody will ever know that if it does.

If you can eliminate the government as a 39.6% partner, then you will be much better off.

Resolution Trust Company was set up to liquidate a bunch of assets that the government had inherited because the savings and loans went broke.

Inflation could be a very - is a likely consequence out of what's going on now.

People went crazy with tulip bulbs. They went crazy with the South Sea Bubble, they went crazy internet stocks, they went crazy with the uranium stocks back when I was first getting started.

If I got a chance to take one percent of the deal either way, I would make that bet.

America should stand for more than just wealth.

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

I think that actually people in my situation should be paying more tax.

I mean, if Pearl Harbor came along, you could have said the planning was wrong by the military ahead of time or maybe the battleships shouldn't have all been in the harbor and all that kind of thing.

I lose confidence in other people, all kinds of institutions.

What could be more advantageous in an intellectual contest - whether it be chess, bridge, or stock selection - than to have opponents who have been taught that thinking is a waste of energy?

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.

When people talk about cash being king, it's not king if it just sits there and never does anything.

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.

A pin lies in wait for every bubble and when the two eventually meet, a new wave of investors learns some very old lessons.

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is.

Wild swings in share prices have more to do with the "lemming- like" behaviour of institutional investors than with the aggregate returns of the company they own.

There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we've got a system that allows them to do it.

We have embraced the 21st century by entering such cutting-edge industries as brick, carpet, insulation and paint. Try to control your excitement.

If we start deciding, based on guesses or emotions, whether we will or won't participate in a business where we should have some long run edge, we're in trouble.

Having first rate people on the team is more important than designing hierarchies and clarifying who reports to whom.

I would say that life at 84, I am having as much fun as I've ever had in my life. I mean I get to do what I love every day with the people I love-and it just doesn't get any better than that.

In my view, [the trade deficit] will create political turmoil at some point...Pretty soon, I think there will be a big adjustment.

We've seen what can be accomplished when we use 50% of our human capacity. If you visualize what 100% can do, you'll join me as an unbridled optimist about America's future.