Inspirational Quotes by Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Inspirational Quotations by Warren Buffett (American Investor)

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.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by 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

Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Action, General

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

A public opinion poll is no substitute for thought.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Public opinion, Opinion, Opinions

If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Change

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

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

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Simplicity

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

It is not greed that drives the world, but envy.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Envy

It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.
—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

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Risk

We don’t get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we’ll wait, we’ll wait indefinitely.
—Warren Buffett

Managers and investors alike must understand that accounting numbers are the beginning, not the end, of business valuation.
—Warren Buffett

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Humanity, Human Nature

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

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: Management, Business

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: Effort, Worry

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.
—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

Bad habits are like chains that are too light to feel until they are too heavy to carry.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Habits

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

I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Money

When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Ignorance

I don’t worry about what I don’t know. I worry about being sure about what I do know.
—Warren Buffett

I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am no investor.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Business

Great investment opportunities come around when excellent companies are surrounded by unusual circumstances that cause the stock to be misappraised.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Opportunity

Our favorite holding period is forever.
—Warren Buffett

Occasionally, a man must rise above principles.
—Warren Buffett

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

Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill.
—Warren Buffett

A horse that can count to 10 is a remarkable horse—not a remarkable mathematician.
—Warren Buffett

The strange thing—it’s a real contradiction—is that if a business is earning a given amount of money and everything else is equal, the less it has in assets, the more it’s worth. You won’t get that in an accounting book.
—Warren Buffett

The really desirable business is the one that doesn’t take any money to operate because it’s already proven that money will not enable anyone to get a position within the business. Those are the great businesses.
—Warren Buffett

If I ever write a book it will be called, Why Smart People Do Dumb Things. My partner says it should be autobiographical.
—Warren Buffett

First come the innovators, then come the imitators, then come the idiots.
—Warren Buffett

I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.
—Warren Buffett
Topics: Belief