CHARLIE MUNGER 99 QUOTES FOR 99 SEASONS

Being rational is a moral imperative. You should never be stupider than you need to be.

A foreign correspondent, after talking to me for a while, once said: 'You don't seem smart enough to be so good at what you're doing. Do you have an explanation?'

If it is wisdom you're after, you're going to spend a lot of time on your ass reading.

Being rational is a moral imperative. You should never be stupider than you need to be.

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.

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

In my life there are not that many questions I can't properly deal with using my $40 adding machine and dog-eared compound interest table.

I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.

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

Those who will not face improvements because they are changes, will face changes that are not improvements.

It's not a competency if you don't know the edge of it.

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

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

We don't train executives. We find them. If a mountain stands up like Everest, you don't have to be a genius to figure out that it's a high mountain.

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

The tax code gives you an enormous advantage if you can find some things you can just sit with.

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

Failure to handle psychological denial is a common way for people to go broke: You have made an enormous commitment to something. You have poured effort and money in. And the more you put in, the more that the whole consistency principle makes you think, 'Now it has to work. If I put in just a little more, then it will work.'

We have a passion for keeping things simple.

The tax code gives you an enormous advantage if you can find some things you can just sit with.

It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.

The tax code gives you an enormous advantage if you can find some things you can just sit with.

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.

I don't have too much interest in teaching other people how to get rich.

Whenever you think something or some person is ruining your life, it's you. A victimization mentality is so debilitating.

Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant.

I don't have too much interest in teaching other people how to get rich.

If you want to understand science, you have to understand math. The good thing about business is that you don't have to know any higher math.

Capitalism is a pretty brutal place.

We look for a horse with one chance in two of winning and which pays you three to one.

In my whole life, I have known no wise people ... who didn't read all the time. You'd be amazed at how much Warren reads, at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out.

We look for a horse with one chance in two of winning and which pays you three to one.

Bull markets go to people's heads. If you're a duck on a pond, and it's rising due to a downpour, you start going up in the world. But you think it's you, not the pond.

We have found in a long life that one competitor is frequently enough to ruin a business.

Why should it be easy to do something that, if done well, two or three times, will make your family rich for life?

I'd rather throw a viper down my shirt front than hire a compensation consultant.

We have found in a long life that one competitor is frequently enough to ruin a business.

There are worse situations than drowning in cash and sitting, sitting, sitting. I remember when I wasn't awash in cash, and I don't want to go back.

We have the same problem as everyone else: It's very hard to predict the future.

We have found in a long life that one competitor is frequently enough to ruin a business.

We have the same problem as everyone else: It's very hard to predict the future.

If you took our top 15 decisions out, we'd have a pretty average record. It wasn't hyperactivity, but a hell of a lot of patience. You stuck to your principles and when opportunities came along, you pounced on them with vigor.

Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.

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

We have the same problem as everyone else: It's very hard to predict the future.

We both insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think.

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

Have you opened a new location, redesigned your shop, or added a new product or service? Don't keep it to yourself, let folks know.

Avoid working directly under somebody you don't admire and don't want to be like.

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

Customers have questions, you have answers. Display the most frequently asked questions, so everybody benefits.

I regard it as very unfair. But capitalism without failure is like religion without hell.

Assume life will be really tough and then ask if you can handle it. If the answer is yes, you've won

Once you get into debt, it's hell to get out. Don't let credit card debt carry over. You can't get ahead paying eighteen percent.

Assume life will be really tough and then ask if you can handle it. If the answer is yes, you've won

Recognize reality even when you don't like it. Especially when you don't like it.

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

A business model that relies on trickery is doomed to fail.

You have to learn to be a follower before you become a leader.

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

We have to have a special insight, or we'll put it in the 'too tough' basket. All of you have to look for a special area of competency and focus on that.

Opportunity comes to the prepared mind.

There's no way that you can live an adequate life without making many mistakes.

Those of us who have been very fortunate have a duty to give back. Whether one gives a lot as one goes along as I do, or a little and then a lot as Warren [plans to], is a matter of personal preference.

There's no way that you can live an adequate life without making many mistakes.

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.

Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets, and can be lost in a heartbeat

I try to get rid of people who always confidently answer questions about which they don't have any real knowledge.

Forgetting your mistakes is a terrible error if you are trying to improve your cognition.

Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets, and can be lost in a heartbeat

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

Suppose you were a real estate investor with a 1/3 interest in the best apartment complex in town, the best mall, and the best office building. Would you feel like a poor, undiversified investor? No! But as soon as you get into stocks, people feel this way. Partly, people need to justify their fees.

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

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.

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.

When I run into a paradox I think either I'm a total horse's ass to have gotten to this point, or I'm fruitfully near the edge of my discipline. It adds excitement to life to wonder which it is.

If you turn on the television, you'll find the mothers of the most obvious criminals that man could ever diagnose, and they all think their sons are innocent. That's simple psychological denial. The reality is too painful to bear, so you just distort it until it's bearable. We all do that to some extent, and it's a common psychological misjudgment that causes terrible problems.

Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean.

All I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there.

Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group, then to hell with them.

All I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there.

I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don't believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody's that smart.

All I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there.

We're emphasizing the knowable by predicting how certain people and companies will swim against the current. We're not predicting the fluctuation in the current.

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.

If you have competence, you know the edge. It wouldnt be a competence if you didnt know where the boundaries lie. Asking whether you've passed the boundary is a question that almost answers itself.

I don't invest in what I don't understand. And I don't want to understand Facebook.

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.

Good businesses can survive a little bad management.

I don't invest in what I don't understand. And I don't want to understand Facebook.

Mankind invented a system to cope with the fact that we are so intrinsically lousy at manipulating numbers. It's called the graph.

Intense interest in any subject is indispensable if you're really going to excel in it.

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

Trying to prioritize among things we're unlikely to do is pretty fruitless.

Intense interest in any subject is indispensable if you're really going to excel in it.

I have a black belt in chutzpah. I was born with it.

If the value of a company doesn't just scream out at you, it's too close.

If customers can’t find it, it doesn’t exist. Clearly list and describe the services you offer. Also, be sure to showcase a premium service.

It's not the bad ideas that do you in, but the good ones.

If the value of a company doesn't just scream out at you, it's too close.

It never ceases to amaze me to see how much territory can be grasped if one merely masters and consistently uses all the obvious and easily learned principles.

Choose clients as you would friends.

Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

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

Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

You don't have to have perfect wisdom to get very rich. Just a bit better than average over a long period of time.

It's a good habit to trumpet your failures and be quiet about your successes.

Just avoid things like racing trains to the crossing, doing cocaine, etc. Develop good mental habits

Acknowledging what you don't know is the dawning of wisdom.

Just avoid things like racing trains to the crossing, doing cocaine, etc. Develop good mental habits

Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world.

There must be some wisdom in the folk saying, 'It's the strong swimmers who drown.'

If you don't allow for self-serving bias in the conduct of others, you are, again, a fool.

It's dishonorable to stay stupider than you need to be.

There must be some wisdom in the folk saying, 'It's the strong swimmers who drown.'

For some odd reason, I had an early and extreme multidisciplinary cast of mind. I couldn't stand reaching for a small idea in my own discipline when there was a big idea right over the fence in somebody else's discipline. So I just grabbed in all directions for the big ideas that would really work.

Let me know what your problem is, and I will try to make it more difficult for you.

We tend to buy things--a lot of things--where we don't know exactly what will happen, but the outcome will be decent.

Strategic plans cause more dumb decisions than anything else in America.

Let me know what your problem is, and I will try to make it more difficult for you.

Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day, if you live long enough ... you will get out of life what you deserve.

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

Everybody engaged in complex work needs colleagues. Just the discipline of having to put your thoughts in order with somebody else is a very useful thing.

The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting.

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

I always knew from when I was a little boy that the opportunities that were important that were going to come to me were few and that the trick was to prepare myself for seizing the few that came. This is not the attitude that they have at a big investment council. They think that if they study a million things, they can know a million things.

People calculate too much and think too little.

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

The first chance you have to avoid a loss from a foolish loan is by refusing to make it. There is no second chance.

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

I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do.