Charlie Munger Quotes - Page 8

If the same family were always on the bottom, then you'd have big resentments. But if DuPonts go down and Pampered Chef up, [that's good]. That much churn makes people think the system is fairer. Buffett: We don't like churn now, but we liked it more 30-40 years ago.

I believe that we are at or near the apex of a great civilization... In 50-100 years, if we're a poor third to some countries in Asia, I wouldn't be surprised. If I had to bet, the part of the world that will do best will be Asia.

I always like it when someone attractive to me agrees with me, so I have fond memories of Phil Fisher. The idea that it was hard to find good investments, so concentrate in a few, seems to me to be an obviously good idea. But 98% of the investment world doesn't think this way.

We're the tortoise that has outrun the hare because it chose the easy predictions.

The harder you work, the more confidence you get. But you may be working hard on something that is false.

What good is envy? It’s the one sin you can’t have any fun at.

The way to win is to work, work, work, work and hope to have a few insights And you're probably not going to be smart enough to find thousands in a lifetime. And when you get a few, you really load up. It's just that simple.

One metric catches people. We prefer businesses that drown in cash. An example of a different business is construction equipment. You work hard all year and there is your profit sitting in the yard. We avoid businesses like that. We prefer those that can write us a check at the end of the year.

Our biggest mistakes, were things we didn't do, companies we didn't buy.

A rough rule in life is that an organization foolish in one way in dealing with a complex system is all too likely to be foolish in another.

You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end.

It's not given to human beings to have such talent that they can just know everything about everything all the time. But it is given to human beings who work hard at it - who look and sift the world for a mispriced bet - that they can occasionally find one. And the wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time they don't. It's just that simple.

Wesco had a market capitalization of $40 million when we bought it [in the early 1970s]. It's $2 billion now. It's been a long slog to a perfectly respectable outcome - not as good as Berkshire Hathaway or Microsoft, but there's always someone in life who's done better.

An idea or a fact is not worth more merely because it's more available to you.

If you always tell people why, they'll understand it better, they'll consider it more important, and they'll be more likely to comply.

Is there such thing as a cheerful pessimist? That's what I am.

It's a rare business that doesn't have a way worse future than it has a past.

We have a passion for keeping things simple.

Clever derivatives broke dozens of companies. It killed them. Bankrupt. We don't need these kinds of innovation in finance. It's OK to be boring in finance. What we want is innovation in widgets.

For years I have read the morning paper and harrumphed. There's a lot to harrumph about now.

Anytime anybody offers you anything with a big commission and a 200-page prospectus, don't buy it. Occasionally, you'll be wrong if you adopt "Munger's Rule." However, over a lifetime, you'll be a long way ahead - and you will miss a lot of unhappy experiences.

In engineering, people have a big margin of safety. But in the financial world, people don't give a damn about safety. They let it balloon and balloon and balloon. It's aided by false accounting.

People calculate too much and think too little.

The ethical rule is from Samuel Johnson who believed that maintenance of easily removable ignorance by a responsible office holder was treacherous malfeasance in meeting moral obligation. The prudential rule is that underlying the old Warner & Swasey advertisement for machine tools: "The man who needs a new machine tool, and hasn't bought it, is already paying for it". The Warner & Swasey rule also applies, I believe, to thinking tools. If you don't have the right thinking tools, you, and the people you seek to help, are already suffering from your easily removable ignorance.

You don't have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long, time.