People around the world are so fascinated by Buffett that they’ll spend millions of dollars just to eat lunch with him. While you may not have that much money lying around, you can still learn from his folksy wisdom.
We’ve rounded up 20 of Buffett’s best quotes.
‘Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years’
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett enjoys an ice cream treat from Dairy Queen before an annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.
Reuters/Rick Wilking
Source: Forbes
‘Don’t watch the market closely’
Wall Street investors at the New York Stock Exchange.
Reuters / Brendan McDermid
“Don’t watch the market closely,” Buffett said during a wild bout of market volatility back in 2016.
He continued: “If they’re trying to buy and sell stocks, and worry when they go down a little bit … and think they should maybe sell them when they go up, they’re not going to have very good results.”
Source: CNBC
“A $5 dinner is, in many cases, better than a $100 dinner.”
Buffett gestures at the start of a 5-kilometer race.
REUTERS/Rick Wilking
Buffett told Forbes that he knew he would make money because he had learned investment strategies that would work.
“My wife and I decided then, we were going to enjoy life,” Buffett said. “We were going to have everything we would possibly use or need, but incidentally, I think a $5 dinner is, in many cases, better than a $100 dinner.”
Source: Forbes
‘Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago’
Buffett walks in the shade at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Associated Press
Source: Forbes
‘I read and think’
Buffett encourages practices like yoga, meditation, and journaling to get in touch with oneself.
Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
“I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think,” he said.
He continued: “That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.”
Source: Time Magazine
‘Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing’
Buffett’s tip for investors worried about risk: know what you are getting into.
Reuters
Source: Forbes
‘You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong’
Buffett adjusts his glasses.
AP
Source: CNBC
Buffett said he’d give his children ‘enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing’
Buffett’s children, Howard, Susan, and Peter.
Nati Harnik/AP Images
The perfect amount to leave to your kids, he told Fortune in 1986, is “enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.”
Source: Fortune
‘The light can at any time go from green to red without pausing at yellow’
Buffett warned that investment environments can change quickly and be good opportunities for those ready to take advantage.
Flickr / Horia Varlan
“When major declines occur, they offer extraordinary opportunities to those who are not handicapped by debt,” Buffett wrote in a letter to Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders in 2017, highlighting the argument against ever borrowing money to buy stocks.
He continued: “No one can tell you when these will happen. The light can at any time go from green to red without pausing at yellow.”
Source: Letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders
‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it’
Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway talks to members of the media at the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.
Eric Frances/Getty Images
Source: Forbes
‘You cannot make a good deal with a bad person’
Buffett in South Korea in 2007.
REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak
“You cannot make a good deal with a bad person,” Buffett once told Suzy Welch, a bestselling management author and CNBC contributor.
Welch told CNBC it was Buffett who gave her the career advice that has helped her more than any other she’s received.
Source: CNBC
‘Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down’
Buffett likes his investments like he likes his socks: cheap.
Getty image
Source: Forbes
Only invest in ‘simple businesses’ that you understand
Buffett at the 2015 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.
REUTERS/Rick Wilking
In his 2014 letter to shareholders, Buffett laid out six criteria he applied to measure a company’s fundamentals. One criterion is that he only invests in “simple businesses.”
“If there’s lots of technology, we won’t understand it,” he said
Source: Letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders
‘Stocks [have] been so much more attractive than bonds’
Traders in the pit of the New York Mercantile Exchange in 2007.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
“The one thing I’m sure of is that over time, stocks from this level will beat bonds from this level,” Buffett told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in 2017. “Stocks [have] been so much more attractive than bonds for a long time now.”
‘The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything’
Jason Reed/Reuters
Source: CNBC
‘It’s better to hang out with people better than you’
Buffett reminded us all that we are only as good as our worst friend.
Bill Gates/YouTube
“It’s better to hang out with people better than you,” Buffett once said. “Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.”
A man wears a t-shirt featuring a Bitcoin logo at a conference in New York in 2018.
REUTERS/Mike Segar
“Cryptocurrencies will come to bad endings,” Buffett said in Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in 2018. “There’s nothing being produced in the way of value from the asset.”
He continued: “It’s something where people who are of less-than-stellar character see an opportunity to clip people who were trying to get rich because their neighbor’s getting rich buying this stuff neither one of them understands.”
Source: Fortune
‘Price is what you pay. Value is what you get’
Buffett speaks onstage during Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington, DC in 2015.
Paul Morigi/Getty Images
Source: Forbes
‘You don’t find out whose been swimming naked until the tide goes out’
Buffett used a beach analogy to help investors understand his insurance business in 1994.
Getty Image
Buffett told investors in a 1994 company meeting that “people have found out — who were speculating on bonds with below margins recently — that you don’t find out whose been swimming naked until the tide goes out.”
“Essentially, that’s what happens in reinsurance, you don’t find out who is swimming naked until the wind blows,” he said.
