- Warren Buffett: Somebody once said that the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they're too heavy to be broken.
- Susan Buffett: I was talking to him one day about some racial issue, and he said to me, "wait till women discover they're the slaves of the world." Now how many men were cognizant of that, and even women then?
- Warren Buffett: In my entire lifetime, everything that I've spent will be quite a bit less than one percent of everything I've made. The other 99% plus will go to others, because it has no utility to me.
- Susan Buffett: There are two rules of investing according to Warren, and he learned this from Ben Graham.
- Warren Buffett: Rule number one, never lose money. Rule number two, never forget rule number one.
- Howard Buffett: When he wrote the letter to us, he put something in that letter that was incredibly important to me, which was exactly how our foundation behaves, which is, if you're gonna try to bat a thousand, you won't do very many things that are important. But if you're willing to basically strike out a few times, you can really change something big.
- Warren Buffett: Einstein is reputed to have said that "Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world" or something like that, and it goes back to that story you probably learned when you were in grade school where somebody did something for the king, and the king said, What can I do for you? And he said Well, lets take a chessboard and put one kernel of wheat on the first square and then double it on the second and double it on the third. And the king readily agreed to it, and by the time he figured out what two to the 64th amounted to, he was giving away the entire kingdom. So it's a pretty simple concept, but over time, it accomplishes extraordinary things.
- Warren Buffett: You may have all these feelings about the stock. The stock has no feelings about you.
- Warren Buffett: The initial example is really my mother. She came from a generation where the main function of the wife was to help her husband in the job. And my sisters are fully as smart as I am. They got better personalities than I had, but they got the message a million different ways that their future was limited, and I got the message that the sky is the limit and it wasn't due to a lack of love or anything of the sort. It just-- it was the culture. On the other hand, you can look at the flip side of that and say it's quite encouraging, because if you look at what this country accomplished only using half of its talent, just think of the potential for the future. I'm enormously bullish on America over the future and part of the reason is that we, by some rather stupid decisions, essentially put half our talent on the sidelines.
- Warren Buffett: Charlie Munger has had a big impact on me in moving me toward looking for wonderful companies at fair prices rather than fair companies at wonderful prices.
- Warren Buffett: The biggest thing in making money is time. You don't have to be particularly smart, you just have to be patient.
- Susan Buffett: To me the crux of it is, that it wasn't the money itself. You can see that in the way he lives. I mean, he doesn't buy huge paintings or build big houses or anything like that. It's all mental with him, and the money is his scorecard. And he used to say to me, "Everybody can read what I read. It's a level playing field." And he loves that, because he's competitive. And he's sitting there all by himself in his office, reading these things that everybody else can read, but he loves the idea that he's gonna win. Ha!
- Warren Buffett: I thank you for the opportunity to appear before this subcommittee. I would like to start by apologizing for the acts that have brought us here. A nation has a right to expect its rules and laws to be obeyed, but I also have asked every Salomon employee to be his or her own compliance officer. After they first obey all rules, I then want employees to ask themselves whether they are willing to have any contemplated act appear the next day on the front page of their local paper to be read by their spouses, children, and friends. If they follow this test, they need not fear my other message to them: Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.
- Warren Buffett: It's a very strange thing, love. You can't get rid of it. If you try to give it out, you get more back. If you try to hang onto it, you lose it.
- Susan Buffett: Whoever you are in this life, you don't want to think you wasted a lot of your energy, love, and time on something useless. I always thought I'd marry a minister, a doctor, or somebody out doing some valuable service to human beings. And the fact that I married somebody who makes just piles of money is really the antithesis of what I ever thought, but I know what he is, and... he is... There's no finer human being than who he is.
- Warren Buffett: The world is a great movie to watch, but you don't want to sleepwalk through life. The important thing to do is to look for the job you would take if you didn't need a job and life is wonderful then. I mean, you'll jump out of bed in the morning because you're really looking forward to the day. I have-- for over 60 years, I've been able to tap dance to work just 'cause I'm doing what I love doing and-- and I just feel very, very lucky.
- Warren Buffett: The truth is that I'm here in my position as a matter of luck. When I was born in 1930, the odds were probably 40:1 against me being born in the United States. I did win the ovarian lottery on that first day, and on top of that, I was male. Put that down as another 50/50 shot and now the odds are 80:1 against being born a male in the United States, and it was enormously important in my whole life. To think that that makes me superior to anyone else as a human being is just-- I can't follow that line of reasoning.
- Warren Buffett: [On Martin Luther King] In that speech, he talked about truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. But that scaffold sways the future.
- Warren Buffett: Well, he was going to be dead in 6 months but that scaffold did sway the future.
- Warren Buffett: [singing] We're glad you are here at our meeting. Be sure to check out our wares. We'll sell you See's Candy and Dilly Bars. And insurance for all of your cars. For its buy, buy, buy all you see. At the Berkshire Show! * flushes urinal*
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