People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole. marketing wisdom, quoted by Prof. Theodore Levitt - German-born American economist, coined the term "globalization" (1925-2006), Quotations book 2026
Survival is the only road to riches. Peter L. Bernstein – American financial historian, economist and educator (1919-2009), from an interview with Jason Zweig at his vacation home in Brattleboro, Vt. (July 28, 2004)
No progress without risk. Dr. Hendrik Leber - German investment and asset manager and consultant (*1967), title of the 22nd ACATIS Value Conference (16.5.2025), Quotations book 2026
Good management is rare at best, it is difficult to appraise, and it is undoubtedly the single most important factor in security analysis. Philip L. Carret - American investor, founder Pioneer Fund (1896-1998),from "The Tortoise Road to Wealth" (1963), Quotations book 2026
Customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don’t yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf. Jeffrey P. "Jeff" Bezos – American company founder: Amazon (b. 1964), in his letter to the Amazon shareholders 2016, Quotations book...
Whenever you can buy a large amount of future earnings power for a low price, you have made a good investment. Sir John Marks Templeton - value investor and philanthropist (1912-2008), Quotations book 2026
Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcomes. Charlie Munger – Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (1924-2023), from his speech "The Psychology of Human Misjudgement" at Harvard University (June 1st, 1995), Quotations book 2026
What matters most is their passion- their focus on serving a large, unmet market need with an outstanding team and disruptive innovation. Their commitment to technical excellence, and obsessing on customers (not competition). Their pursuit of reasonable financings, but unreasonable, audacious goals. Their sense of urgency. Their ambition, vision, confidence and humility in putting their team...
There is always risk. It is financial intelligence that improves the odds. Robert T. Kiyosaki – American businessman and author (b. 1947), from "Rich Dad's Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money" (2015)
Our experience has been that the manager of an already high-cost operation frequently is uncommonly resourceful in finding new ways to add to overhead while the manager of a tightly-run operation usually continues to find additional methods to curtail costs, even when his costs are already well below those of his competitors. Warren Buffett - American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire...
Our managers have produced extraordinary results by doing rather ordinary things—but doing them exceptionally well. Warren Buffett - American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (*1930), in his letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders (1987), Quotations book 2025
A compact organization lets all of us spend our time managing the business rather than managing each other. Warren Buffett - American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (*1930), in his letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders (1982), Quotations book 2025
Just run your business as if: (1) You own 100% of it; (2) It is the only asset in the world that you and your family have or will ever have; and (3) You can't sell it for at least a century. Warren Buffett - American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (*1930), in his letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders (1998), Quotations book 2025
The truly big investment idea can usually be explained in a short paragraph. Warren Buffett - American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (*1930), in his letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders (1994), Quotations book 2025
If [investing] weren't a little difficult, everybody would be rich. Charlie Munger - Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (1924-2023), from "Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor" (2015)
The way to judge yourself is inertia analysis. Run your January 1 portfolio for the full year without any changes and compare it to your actual results. It's awful because some years you realize all you did was subtract value when you went into the office. Nicolai Tangen – Norwegian hedge fund manager, founder of AKO Capital (b. 1966), Quotations book 2025
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. Warren Buffett - American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (b. 1930), from "Homespun Wisdom from the 'Oracle of Omaha'", ("Businessweek", July 5th, 1999)
Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean. Charlie Munger – Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (1924-2023)
A lot of people with high IQs are terrible investors because they've got terrible temperaments. Charlie Munger – Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (1924-2023), quoted in "Value Investing: A Value Investor’s Journey Through the Unknown" (2015), Quotations book 2025
When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever. Warren Buffett - American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (b. 1930), in his letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders (1988)