115 quotes
That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs. My pledge starts us down that course.
I eat like a normal 6-year-old, but if you look at the mortality statistics, I mean, 6-year-olds don't die very often.
The more prosperous the rest of the world becomes, it won't be at our expense — the more prosperous we'll become and the safer we'll feel and your children will feel someday.
Berkshire Hathaway 2025 Shareholder meeting (2025)
You should always adapt your consumption to your income — you shouldn't try and adjust your income to your consumption. That's a basic principle for individuals, businesses, and everything else.
You couldn't advance in a finance department in this country unless you taught that the world was flat.
I call investing the greatest business in the world ... because you never have to swing.
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
Corporate Survival: The Critical Importance of Sustainability Risk Management (2005)
I wouldn't mind going to jail if I had three cellmates who played bridge.
The Warren Buffett Portfolio: Mastering the Power of the Focus Investment Strategy (2000)
It's class warfare. My class is winning, but they shouldn't be.
In my view, for most people, the best thing to do is to own the S&P 500 index fund. People will try and sell you other things because there’s more money in it for them if they do.
Basically, the math of intelligently selling insurance is better than the math of intelligently buying insurance.
We like to buy things where no one makes a dime selling them to us.
I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into.
A public opinion poll will not get you rich on Wall Street.
Our stay-put behavior reflects our view that the stock market serves as a relocation center at which money is moved from the active to the patient.
Letters to Shareholders (1957)
Upon leaving [the derivatives business], our feelings about the business mirrored a line in a country song: "I liked you better before I got to know you so well."
Letters to Shareholders (1957)
You're doing calculations all the time.
What I must understand is why someone will continue to get out of bed in the morning once they have all the money they could want. Do they love the business, or do they love the money?
Investors making purchases in an overheated market need to recognize that it may often take an extended period for the value of even an outstanding company to catch up with the price they paid.
The greater the potential for reward in the value portfolio, the less risk there is.
The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville (1984)