Charlie Munger Quotes - Page 3

Stock-picking is like gambling: those who win well, seldom bet, but when they do, they bet heavily.

When you mix raisins and turds, you've still got turds.

There are two kinds of businesses: The first earns 12%, and you can take it out at the end of the year. The second earns 12%, but all the excess cash must be reinvested - there's never any cash. It reminds me of the guy who looks at all of his equipment and says, 'There's all of my profit.' We hate that kind of business.

The investment game always involves considering both quality and price, and the trick is to get more quality than you pay for in price. It's just that simple.

The basic concept of value to a private owner and being motivated when you're buying and selling securities by reference to intrinsic value instead of price momentum - I don't think that will ever be outdated.

You're looking for a mispriced gamble. That's what investing is. And you have to know enough to know whether the gamble is mispriced. That's value investing.

There’s no way that you can live an adequate life without many mistakes. In fact, one trick in life is to get so you can handle mistakes. Failure to handle psychological denial is a common way for people to go broke.

A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.

All intelligent investing is value investing - acquiring more that you are paying for. You must value the business in order to value the stock.

Darwin paid particular attention to disconfirming evidence. Objectivity maintenance routines are totally required in life if you're going to be a great thinker.

If you don't keep learning, other people will pass you by. Temperament alone won't do it - you need a lot of curiosity for a long, long time.

It's stupid the way people extrapolate the past -- and not slightly stupid, but massively stupid.

People have always had this craving to have someone tell them the future. Long ago, kings would hire people to read sheep guts. There's always been a market for people who pretend to know the future. Listening to today's forecasters is just as crazy as when the king hired the guy to look at the sheep guts.

A few major opportunities, clearly recognizable as such, will usually come to one who continuously searches and waits, with a curious mind, loving diagnosis involving multiple variables. And then all that is required is a willingness to bet heavily when the odds are extremely favorable, using resources available as a result of prudence and patience in the past.

The game of life is the game of everlasting learning. At least it is if you want to win.

If we've been a little more successful than other people, is because we always realised that the school of life was always open, and if you were not learning more you are falling behind.

It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn't get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.

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.

When you locate a bargain, you must ask, 'Why me, God? Why am I the only one who could find this bargain?'

Look at those hedge funds - you think they can wait? They don't know how to wait! I have sat for years at a time with $10 to $12 million in treasuries or municipals, just waiting, waiting...As Jesse Livermore said, 'The big money is not in the buying and selling...but in the waiting.'

I think the reason why we got into such idiocy in investment management is best illustrated by a story that I tell about the guy who sold fishing tackle. I asked him, "My God, they're purple and green. Do fish really take these lures?" And he said, "Mister, I don't sell to fish." Investment managers are in the position of that fishing tackle salesman.

How do you compete against a true fanatic? You can only try to build the best possible moat and continuously attempt to widen it.

Any year that you don't destroy one of your best-loved ideas is probably a wasted year

The idea of caring is that someone is making money faster [than you are] 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?

I like people admitting they were complete stupid horses' asses. I know I'll perform better if I rub my nose in my mistakes. This is a wonderful trick to learn.