Warren Buffet is a role model to a lot of value investors world wide and that is because of his consistency and ability to grow his company earnings for over 40 years. Many of his methods are included in his annual letters to his shareholders and interviews and from there a lot of his quotes are culled. Here are some of the best.
1. “Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule No. 1.”
2. “Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”
3. “Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.”
4. “I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.”
5. “Never invest in a business you can’t understand.”
6. “Stop trying to predict the direction of the stock market, the economy or elections.”
7. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
8. “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”
9. “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”
10. “Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”
11. “We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”
12. “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”
13. “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.”
14. “Our favorite holding period is forever.”
15. “I don’t look to jump over seven-foot bars; I look around for one-foot bars that I can step over.”
16. “If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.”
17. “Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, ‘Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.”
18. “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
19. “Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.”
20. “Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.”
21. “Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction.”
22. “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”
23. “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.”
24. “Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.”
25. “If you are in a poker game and after 20 minutes you don’t know who the patsy is, then you’re the patsy.”
26. “Beware of geeks bearing formulas.”
27. “If you don’t feel comfortable owning something for 10 years, then don’t own it for 10 minutes.”
28. “Buy companies with strong histories of profitability and with a dominant business franchise.”
29. “It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.”
30. “Risk can be greatly reduced by concentrating on only a few holdings.”
31. “The critical investment factor is determining the intrinsic value of a business and paying a fair or bargain price.”
32. “Unless you can watch your stock holding decline by 50% without becoming panic-stricken, you should not be in the stock market.”
33. “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.”
34. “Turnarounds seldom turn.”
35. “Great investment opportunities come around when excellent companies are surrounded by unusual circumstances that cause the stock to be mis-appraised.”
36. “In the short term, the market is a popularity contest. In the long term, the market is a weighing machine.”
37. “A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.”
38. “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
39. “Much success can be attributed to inactivity. Most investors cannot resist the temptation to constantly buy and sell.”
40. “The advice ‘you never go broke taking a profit’ is foolish.”