Charlie Munger famous quotes

The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more.
-- Charlie Munger

#Helping #Humans

I would argue that a majority of the horrors we face would not have happened if the accounting profession developed and enforced better accounting.
-- Charlie Munger

#Majority #Faces #Arguing

It's in the nature of stock markets to go way down from time to time. There's no system to avoid bad markets. You can't do it unless you try to time the market, which is a seriously dumb thing to do. Conservative investing with steady savings without expecting miracles is the way to go.
-- Charlie Munger

#Miracle #Dumb #Trying

Accounting is a big subject and there are huge forces in play. The entire momentum of existing thinking and existing custom is in a direction that allows terrible follies to happen, and the terrible follies have terrible consequences.
-- Charlie Munger

#Thinking #Play #Momentum

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

#Long #Attention #Succeed

Any year that you don't destroy one of your best-loved ideas is probably a wasted year
-- Charlie Munger

#Years #Ideas

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

#Real #People #Trying

I do not think you can trust bankers to control themselves. They are like ***** addicts.
-- Charlie Munger

#Thinking #Bankers #Heroin

We have a high moral responsibility to be rational
-- Charlie Munger

#Responsibility #Moral #Rational

There are two kinds of businesses: The first earns 12%, and you can take it out at the end of the year. The second earns 12%, but all the excess cash must be reinvested - there's never any cash. It reminds me of the guy who looks at all of his equipment and says, 'There's all of my profit.' We hate that kind of business.
-- Charlie Munger

#Hate #Years #Two

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

#Why Me

Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up.
-- Charlie Munger

#Trying #Investing #Each Day

The safest way to try to get what you want is to try to deserve what you want. It's such a simple idea. It's the golden rule. You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end.
-- Charlie Munger

#Simple #Ideas #Trying

Deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end.
-- Charlie Munger

#World #Ends

A lot of people think if you just had more process and more compliance -- checks and doublechecks and so forth -- you could create a better result in the world. Well, Berkshire has had practically no process. We had hardly any internal auditing until they forced it on us. We just try to operate in a seamless web of deserved trust and be careful whom we trust.
-- Charlie Munger

#Thinking #People #Trying

The safest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want.
-- Charlie Munger

#Want #Way #What You Want

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

#Average #Long #Guy

We try more to profit from always remembering the obvious than from grasping the esoteric.
-- Charlie Munger

#Trying #Esoteric #Remember

Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean.
-- Charlie Munger

#Mean #Mimicking #Regression

All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there
-- Charlie Munger

#Want

Some people seem to think there's no trouble just because it hasn't happened yet. If you jump out the window at the 42nd floor and you're still doing fine as you pass the 27th floor, that doesn't mean you don't have a serious problem. I would want to address the problem right now.
-- Charlie Munger

#Mean #Thinking #People

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

#Faces #Improvement

It's stupid the way people extrapolate the past -- and not slightly stupid, but massively stupid.
-- Charlie Munger

#Stupid #Past #People

It's dishonourable to stay stupider than you need to be
-- Charlie Munger

#Needs

Determine value apart from price; progress apart from activity; wealth apart from size.
-- Charlie Munger

#Progress #Size #Wealth

Understanding how to be a good investor makes you a better business manager and vice versa.
-- Charlie Munger

#Decision #Understanding #Vices

The big money is not in the buying and selling ... but in the waiting.
-- Charlie Munger

#Waiting #Buying #Selling

We get these questions a lot from the enterprising young. It's a very intelligent question: You look at some old guy who's rich and you ask, 'How can I become like you, except faster?' Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts... Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day, at the end of the day -- if you live long enough -- most people get what they deserve.
-- Charlie Munger

#Intelligent #Discipline #Long

Great investing requires a lot of delayed gratification.
-- Charlie Munger

#Investing #Delayed Gratification #Gratification

Recognize reality even when you don't like it-especially when you don't like it.
-- Charlie Munger

#Reality

You must value the business in order to value the stock.
-- Charlie Munger

#Order #Values

People have always had this craving to have someone tell them the future. Long ago, kings would hire people to read sheep guts. There's always been a market for people who pretend to know the future. Listening to today's forecasters is just as crazy as when the king hired the guy to look at the sheep guts.
-- Charlie Munger

#Kings #Crazy #Sheep

Those who keep learning, will keep rising in life
-- Charlie Munger

#Rising #Keep Learning

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

#Jobs #Intelligent #Investing

Your life must focus on the maximization of objectivity.
-- Charlie Munger

#Objectivity #Focus #Insightful

Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.
-- Charlie Munger

#Reading #Self #Curiosity

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

#Winning #Games #Insightful

Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.
-- Charlie Munger

#Bed

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

#Mistake #Errors #Trying

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.
-- Charlie Munger

#Stupid #Intelligent #Long

Over the very long term, history shows that the chances of any business surviving in a manner agreeable to a company's owners are slim at best.
-- Charlie Munger

#Long #Slim #Chance

A lot of success in life and business comes from knowing what you want to avoid: early death, a bad marriage, etc.
-- Charlie Munger

#Knowing #Want #Etc

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.
-- Charlie Munger

#Dream #Smart #Believe

You have to know accounting. It's the language of practical business life. It was a very useful thing to deliver to civilization. I've heard it came to civilization through Venice which of course was once the great commercial power in the Mediterranean. However, double entry bookkeeping was a hell of an invention.
-- Charlie Munger

#Business #Civilization #Venice

We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.
-- Charlie Munger

#Change #Ideas #Quality

The whole concept of dividing it up into 'value' and 'growth' strikes me as twaddle. It's convenient for a bunch of pension fund consultants to get fees prattling about and a way for one advisor to distinguish himself from another. But, to me, all intelligent investing is value investing.
-- Charlie Munger

#Intelligent #Growth #Investing

Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets - and can be lost in a heartbeat.
-- Charlie Munger

#Integrity #Reputation #Remember

In the corporate world, if you have analysts, due diligence, and no horse sense, you've just described hell.
-- Charlie Munger

#Horse #World #Due Diligence

The world of derivatives is full of holes that very few people are really aware of. It's like hydrogen and oxygen sitting on the corner waiting for a little flame.
-- Charlie Munger

#Oxygen #Flames #People