My favorite so-called Mungerisms...
1. “I think life is a whole series of opportunity costs. You know, you got to marry the best person who is convenient to find who will have you. Investment is much the same sort of a process.” — 1997 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
2. "Another thing, of course, is life will have terrible blows, horrible blows, unfair blows. Doesn’t matter. And some people recover and others don’t. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He thought that every mischance in life was an opportunity to behave well. Every mischance in life was an opportunity to learn something and your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion. That is a very good idea." — 2007 USC Law School Commencement Address
3. “You don’t have a lot of envy, you don’t have a lot of resentment, you don’t overspend your income, you stay cheerful in spite of your troubles, you deal with reliable people and you do what you’re supposed to do. All these simple rules work so well to make your life better.” — 2019 CNBC interview
4. “I think that a life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time.” — 2017 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
5. “Live within your income and save so that you can invest. Learn what you need to learn.” — Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger
6. “I find it much easier to find four or five investments where I have a pretty reasonable chance of being right that they're way above average. I think it's much easier to find five than it is to find 100. I think the people who argue for all this diversification — by the way, I call it ‘deworsification’ — which I copied from somebody — and I'm way more comfortable owning two or three stocks which I think I know something about and where I think I have an advantage.”
7. "I think that the modern investor, to get ahead, almost has to get in a few stocks that are way above average. They try and have a few Apples and Googles or so on, just to keep up, because they know that a significant percentage of all the gains that come to all the common stockholders combined is going to come from a few of these supercompetitors."
8. “I have a friend who’s a fisherman. He says, ‘I have a simple rule for success in fishing. Fish where the fish are.’ You want to fish where the bargains are. That simple. If the fishing is really lousy where you are you should probably look for another place to fish.”— 2020 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
9. “The world is full of foolish gamblers and they will not do as well as the patient investors.” — 2018 Weekly in Stocks
10. "I am personally skeptical of some of the hype that has gone into artificial intelligence. I think old-fashioned intelligence works pretty well." — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
11. “We’ve had enough good sense when something is working very well to keep doing it. I’d say we’re demonstrating what might be called the fundamental algorithm of life — repeat what works. I spent a lifetime trying to avoid my own mental biases. A.) I rub my own nose into my own mistakes. B.) I try and keep it simple and fundamental as much as I can. And, I like the engineering concept of a margin of safety. I’m a very blocking and tackling kind of thinker. I just try to avoid being stupid. I have a way of handling a lot of problems — I put them in what I call my ‘too hard pile,’ and just leave them there. I’m not trying to succeed in my ‘too hard pile.’” — CalTech Distinguished Alumni Award interview
12. “You’ll do better if you have passion for something in which you have aptitude. If Warren Buffett had gone into ballet, no one would have heard of him.” – 2008 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting.
13. "If you don’t see the world the way it is, it’s like judging something through a distorted lens."
14. "All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there. And a related thought: Early on, write your desired obituary — and then behave accordingly.
15. "You can learn a lot from dead people. Read of the deceased you admire and detest."
16. "Warren and I don’t focus on the froth of the market. We seek out good long-term investments and stubbornly hold them for a long time."
17. "There is no such thing as a 100% sure thing when investing. Thus, the use of leverage is dangerous. A string of wonderful numbers times zero will always equal zero. Don’t count on getting rich twice."
18. "You don’t, however, need to own a lot of things in order to get rich."
19. "You have to keep learning if you want to become a great investor. When the world changes, you must change."
20. "Warren and I hated railroad stocks for decades, but the world changed and finally the country had four huge railroads of vital importance to the American economy. We were slow to recognize change, but better late than never.
