Charlie Munger (b.1924,) fully Charles Thomas Munger, is an American investor and philanthropist. He is the vice-chairman of the investment conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway and is a business partner of Berkshire’s renowned founder, Warren Buffett. Munger is famous for his “elementary world wisdom” system that emphasizes fact-based data analysis and overcoming emotion in decision-making.
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Munger worked as a teenager in a grocery store owned by Buffett’s grandfather. At age 17, Munger attended the University of Michigan but dropped out to enlist in the military during World War II. After the war, he entered Harvard Law School without an undergraduate degree and graduated in 1948 with a J.D. magna cum laude. He started practicing law in Los Angeles but gave up his practice at the urging of Warren Buffett to focus on managing investments and developing real estate.
Munger served as chairperson of Wesco Financial Corporation from 1984 through 2011. He is also the chairperson of the Daily Journal Corporation, based in Los Angeles, California, and a director of Costco Wholesale Corporation.
Munger has claimed that he is a generalist for whom investment is only one of a broad range of interests that include architecture, philosophy, philanthropy, investing, yacht-design, etc. He is a voracious reader and engages in books on history, science, biography, and psychology. Munger is a significant benefactor of the University of Michigan and Stanford University.
Munger’s wisdom is featured in such best-selling books as Janet Lowe’s Damn Right!: Behind the Scenes with Charlie Munger (2003,) Peter Bevelin’s Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger (2007,) and the compilation Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger (2005.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Charlie Munger
I met the towering intellectuals in books, not in the classroom, which is natural. I can’t remember when I first read Ben Franklin. I had Thomas Jefferson over my bed at seven or eight. My family was into all that stuff, getting ahead through discipline, knowledge, and self-control.
—Charlie Munger
Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets—and can be lost in a heartbeat.
—Charlie Munger
There’s integrity, intelligence, experience and dedication. That’s what human enterprises need to run well.
—Charlie Munger
Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean.
—Charlie Munger
The investment game always involves considering both quality and price, and the trick is to get more quality than you pay for in price. It’s just that simple.
—Charlie Munger
When you borrow a man’s car, always return it with a tank of gas.
—Charlie Munger
You don’t have to have perfect wisdom to get very rich. All you’ve got to do is have slightly more than other people, on average, over a long time.
—Charlie Munger
Part of the secret of a long life, that’s worked as well as mine, is not to expect too much of human nature. It’s almost bound to be a lot of defects and problems. And to have your life full of seething resentments and hatreds, it’s counterproductive. You’re punishing yourself and not fixing the world. Can you think of anything much more stupid than trying to fix the world in a way that ruins yourself and doesn’t fix the world? It’s pretty stupid.
—Charlie Munger
If you’re not confused, I don’t think you understand.
—Charlie Munger
Confucius said that real knowledge is knowing the extent of one’s ignorance. Aristotle and Socrates said the same thing. Is it a skill that can be taught or learned? It probably can, if you have enough of a stake riding on the outcome. Some people are extraordinarily good at knowing the limits of their knowledge, because they have to be. Think of somebody who’s been a professional tightrope walker for 20 years—and has survived. He couldn’t survive as a tightrope walker for 20 years unless he knows exactly what he knows and what he doesn’t know. He’s worked so hard at it, because he knows if he gets it wrong he won’t survive. The survivors know. … Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.
—Charlie Munger
No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.
—Charlie Munger
Wall Street has too much wealth and political power.
—Charlie Munger
It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn’t get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.
—Charlie Munger
If you get a lot of heavy ideology young — and then you start expressing it — you are really locking your brain into a very unfortunate pattern.
—Charlie Munger
The number one idea is to view a stock as an ownership of the business and to judge the staying quality of the business in terms of its competitive advantage. Look for more value in terms of discounted future cash-flow than you are paying for. Move only when you have an advantage.
—Charlie Munger
Today, it seems to be regarded as the duty of CEOs to make the stock go up. This leads to all sorts of foolish behavior. We want to tell it like it is.
—Charlie Munger
A lot of opportunities in life tend to last a short while, due to some temporary inefficiency… For each of us, really good investment opportunities aren’t going to come along too often and won’t last too long, so you’ve got to be ready to act and have a prepared mind.
—Charlie Munger
Warren spends 70 hours a week thinking about investing.
—Charlie Munger
There’s more honor in investment management than in investment banking.
—Charlie Munger
We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side. If you can’t state arguments against what you believe better than your detractors, you don’t know enough.
—Charlie Munger
We’re the tortoise that has outrun the hare because it chose the easy predictions.
—Charlie Munger
The only duty of the corporate executive is to widen the moat… There are times when it is too tough. But the duty should be to widen the moat. I can see instance after instance where that isn’t what people do in business. One must keep their eye on the ball of widening the moat, to be a steward of the competitive advantage that came to you.
—Charlie Munger
I insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think.
—Charlie Munger
The really big ideas carry ninety-five percent of the freight.
—Charlie Munger
Whenever you think something or some person is ruining your life, it’s you. A victimization mentality is so debilitating.
—Charlie Munger
The safest way to try to get what you want is to try to deserve what you want. It’s such a simple idea. It’s the golden rule. You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end.
—Charlie Munger
Most people are too fretful, they worry too much. Success means being very patient, but aggressive when it’s time.
—Charlie Munger
In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and or minimizing one or a few variables—like the discount warehouses of Costco.
—Charlie Munger
The highest form that civilization can reach is a seamless web of deserved trust — not much procedure, just totally reliable people correctly trusting one another. … In your own life what you want is a seamless web of deserved trust. And if your proposed marriage contract has forty-seven pages, I suggest you not enter.
—Charlie Munger
If you’re capable of understanding the world, you have a moral obligation to become rational.
—Charlie Munger
Topics: Rationality
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Warren Buffett American Investor
Mohnish Pabrai Indian-American Investor, Philanthropist
Ray Dalio American Investor
Henry R. Kravis American Businessman
T. Boone Pickens American Businessman, Financier
David Rockefeller American Businessman, Philanthropist
Peter Thiel American Entrepreneur
Jesse Lauriston Livermore American Investor
Richard Rainwater American Investor
George Soros Hungarian-American Investor