A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.
—Charlie Munger
Topics: Philosophy
We have a history when things are really horrible of wading in when no one else will.
—Charlie Munger
You can progress only when you learn the method of learning.
—Charlie Munger
Over the long term, it’s hard for a stock to earn a much better return that the business which underlies it earns. If the business earns six percent on capital over forty years and you hold it for that forty years, you’re not going to make much different than a six percent return—even if you originally buy it at a huge discount. Conversely, if a business earns eighteen percent on capital over twenty or thirty years, even if you pay an expensive looking price, you’ll end up with one hell of a result.
—Charlie Munger
I’m not entitled to have an opinion unless I can state the arguments against my position better than the people who are in opposition. I think that I am qualified to speak only when I’ve reached that state.
—Charlie Munger
Topics: Reform, Correction
Spend less than you make; always be saving something. Put it into a tax-deferred account. Over time, it will begin to amount to something. This is such a no-brainer.
—Charlie Munger
Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich, not because I wanted Ferrari’s—I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it.
—Charlie Munger
A lot of people with high IQs are terrible investors because they’ve got terrible temperaments. And that is why we say that having a certain kind of temperament is more important than brains. You need to keep raw irrational emotion under control. You need patience and discipline and an ability to take losses and adversity without going crazy. You need an ability to not be driven crazy by extreme success.
—Charlie Munger
You must have the confidence to override people with more credentials than you whose cognition is impaired by incentive-caused bias or some similar psychological force that is obviously present. But there are also cases where you have to recognize that you have no wisdom to add — and that your best course is to trust some expert.
—Charlie Munger
Fixable but unfixed bad performance is bad character and tends to create more of itself, causing more damage to the excuse giver with each tolerated instance.
—Charlie Munger
Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day—if you live long enough—most people get what they deserve.
—Charlie Munger
I’m right, and you’re smart, and sooner or later you’ll see I’m right.
—Charlie Munger
Everyone has the idea of owning good companies. The problem is that they have high prices in relations to assets and earnings, and that takes all of the fun out of the game.
—Charlie Munger
Investing is where you find a few great companies and then sit on your ass.
—Charlie Munger
Gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but I think civilized people don’t buy gold, they invest in productive businesses.
—Charlie Munger
Just as a man working with his tools should know its limitations, a man working with his cognitive apparatus must know its limitations.
—Charlie Munger
There is nothing more counterproductive than envy. Someone in the world will always be better than you. Of all the sins, envy is easily the worst, because you can’t even have any fun with it. It’s a total net loss.
—Charlie Munger
Topics: Envy
The idea of caring that someone is making money faster [than you] is one of the deadly sins. Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at. There’s a lot of pain and no fun. Why would you want to get on that trolley?
—Charlie Munger
Topics: Envy
No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.
—Charlie Munger
It’s just so useful dealing with people you can trust and getting all the others the hell out of your life. It ought to be taught as a catechism. … Wise people want to avoid other people who are just total rat poison, and there are a lot of them.
—Charlie Munger
When you mix raisins and turds, you still got turds.
—Charlie Munger
There are worse situations than drowning in cash and sitting, sitting, sitting. I remember when I wasn’t awash in cash — and I don’t want to go back.
—Charlie Munger
There has never been a master plan. Anyone who wanted to do it, we fired because it takes on a life of its own and doesn’t cover new reality. We want people taking into account new information.
—Charlie Munger
People always underestimate the ability of earth to increase its carrying capacity.
—Charlie Munger
We’ve really made the money out of high quality businesses. In some cases, we bought the whole business. And in some cases, we just bought a big block of stock. But when you analyze what happened, the big money’s been made in the high quality businesses. And most of the other people who’ve made a lot of money have done so in high quality businesses.
—Charlie Munger
We’ve got great flexibility and a certain discipline in terms of not doing some foolish thing just to be active—discipline in avoiding just doing any damn thing just because you can’t stand inactivity.
—Charlie Munger
We just throw some decisions into the ‘too hard’ file and go onto the others.
—Charlie Munger
Assume life will be really tough, and then ask if you can handle it. If the answer is yes, you’ve won.
—Charlie Munger
If you make yourself a very reliable person and stay reliable all your life, faithfully doing whatever you engage to do, it will be very hard for you to fail at anything you want.
—Charlie Munger
Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs.
—Charlie Munger
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
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