Happy 90th Birthday Warren Buffett! The Brew can think of no better way to honor the GOAT than with a memorable piece of Warren wisdom for every year he's been alive.
1. "Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1."
2. "Never invest in a business you cannot understand."
3. "The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say 'no' to almost everything."
4. "The trick is, when there is nothing to do, do nothing."
5. "You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong."
6. "If you're smart, you're going to make a lot of money without borrowing."
7. "You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right."
8. "It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results."
9. "Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down."
10. "For 240 years it's been a terrible mistake to bet against America, and now is no time to start."
11. “We look for three things: intelligence, energy, and integrity. If you don’t have the latter, then you should hope they don’t have the first two either. If someone doesn’t have integrity, then you want them to be dumb and lazy.”
12. "You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant."
13. "The most important investment you can make is in yourself."
14. "Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."
15. "Choosing your heroes is very important. Associate well, marry up and hope you find someone who doesn’t mind marrying down."
16. "If you're in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%."
17. "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it."
18. "Never lie under any circumstances."
19. "It's better to hang out with people better than you."
20. "I tell students to go work for an organization you admire or an individual you admire, which usually means that most MBAs I meet become self-employed."
21. "Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction."
22. "I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business."
23. "It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price."
24. "If you aren't willing to own a stock for 10 years, don't even think about owning it for 10 minutes."
25. "Stocks are probably still the best of all the poor alternatives in an era of inflation—at least they are if you buy in at appropriate prices."
26. "Investing on paper is like reading a romance novel vs. doing something else. You’ll soon find out whether you like it. The earlier you start, the better."
27. "Buy American. I am."
28. "It's better to have a partial interest in the Hope diamond than to own all of a rhinestone."
29. "When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever."
30. "If Wall Street analysts or board members urge that brand of CEO to consider possible acquisitions, it's a bit like telling your ripening teenager to be sure to have a normal sex life."
31. "A truly great business must have an enduring ‘moat’ that protects excellent returns on invested capital."
32. "If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac [Newton] might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases."
33. "Buying dollar bills for $1.10 is not good business for those who stick around."
34. "The best chance to deploy capital is when things are going down."
35. "In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield."
36. "The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble...we want to buy them when they're on the operating table."
37. "We want products where people feel like kissing you instead of slapping you."
38. "I don’t know if @HarleyDavidson stock is worth $20 or $30. I like a business where customers tattoo their name on their chest - I’m not sure you can go around questioning those guys!"
39. "Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies, and they will briefly rain gold. When downpours of that sort occur, it’s imperative that we rush outdoors carrying washtubs, not teaspoons."
40. "Though markets are generally rational, they occasionally do crazy things. Seizing the opportunities then offered does not require great intelligence, a degree in economics or a familiarity with Wall Street jargon."
41. "Everything will be all right. We do have the greatest economic machine that man has ever created."
42. "When trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients."
43. "As investors, however, our reaction to a fermenting industry is much like our attitude toward space exploration. We applaud the endeavor but prefer to skip the ride."
44. "In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend."
45. "Buy commodities, sell brands has long been a formula for business success. It has produced enormous and sustained profits for Coca-Cola since 1886 and Wrigley since 1891."
46. "A fast-changing industry environment may offer the chance for huge wins, but it precludes the certainty we seek."
47. "Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre."
48. "Bitcoin has no unique value at all."
49. "It doesn’t do anything. It just sits there. It’s like a seashell or something, and that is not an investment to me."
50. Bitcoin is "probably rat poison squared."
51. “In terms of cryptocurrencies generally, I can say almost with certainty that they will come to a bad ending.”
52. “If I could buy a five-year put on every one of the cryptocurrencies, I’d be glad to do it, but I would never short a dime’s worth.”
53. “Blockchain...is very big, but it didn’t need bitcoin.”
54. “Honesty is a very expensive gift, don’t expect it from cheap people.”
55. “You cannot make a good deal with a bad person.”
56. “There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.”
57. “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.”
58. “The people that behaved well are no doubt going to find themselves taking care of the people who didn’t behave well.”
59. "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
60. "You can give someone a $2 million bonus and they’re happy until they see the next guy got $2.1 million and then they’re miserable."
61. "Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway."
62. "Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked."
63. "The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging."
64. "Price is what you pay. Value is what you get."
65. "Don’t risk what is important to you, to get what is not important to you."
66. "It’s much easier to stay out of trouble now than to get out of trouble later."
67. "Speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest."
68. "Ships will sail around the world, but the Flat Earth Society will flourish."
69. “If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need.”
70. “What is smart at one price is stupid at another.”
71. “If you don’t trust where you have your money, the world stops.”
72. “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.”
73. “Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.”
74. "If principles can become dated, they’re not principles."
75. "A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought."
76. "Don't ask a barber whether you need a haircut."
77. "Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future."
78. "Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken."
79. "I just sit in my office and read all day."
80. "This morning, I had a bowl of chocolate chip ice cream."
81. "I checked the actuarial tables, and the lowest death rate is among six-year-olds. So I decided to eat like a six-year-old. It's the safest course I can take."
82. "I'm one quarter Coca-Cola...If I eat 2700 calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola. I drink at least five 12-ounce servings. I do it everyday."
83. "I will never risk getting caught short of cash."
84. "I always knew I was going to be rich."
85. "I will keep well over 99% of my net worth in Berkshire. My wife and I have never sold a share nor do we intend to."
86. "When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night’s sleep for the chance of extra profits."
87. "I couldn't get a disease named after me, so I settled for a tax."
88. "You know, if I'm playing bridge and a naked woman walks by, I don't ever see her."
89. Warren's 1947 senior year high school yearbook caption: "likes math; a future stock broker."
90. "Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway."
Happy birthday @WarrenBuffett!
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