The highest form that civilization can reach is a seamless web of deserved trust. Not much procedure, just totally reliable people correctly trusting one another. Charlie Munger - Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (1924-2023), Quotations book 2024
Have your money where the owners are. Mario Gabelli – American stock investor, investment advisor, and financial analyst, founder, chairman, and CEO of Gabelli Asset Management Company Investors, GAMCO (b. 1942)
The main message of the Kaizen strategy is that not a day should go by without some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company. Masaaaki Imai - founder of Kaizen Institute, known as the "father of Continuous Improvement" and for his work on quality management, specifically on "Kaizen" (1930-2023), Quotations book 2024
I always look to invest in a manager who has made the company his or her life's work. Robert "Rob" Vinall – British value investor, founder and managing director of RV Capital (b. 1973), Quotations book 2024
What you want in life is a young doctor and an old investment advisor: The doctor is at the peak of his knowledge when he graduates medical school and a thoughtful investment advisor should be growing in wisdom every day. Thomas "Tom" S. Gayner– American investor, CO-CEO and CIO Markel Corp (b. 1961), Quotations book...
Our job is to pass custody of your investment over at the right price and to the right people. Nick Sleep - British investor and co-founder of Sleep, Zakaria and Company and the IGY Foundation (b. 1968)
Our favourite and most frequent acquisitions are the businesses that we buy from founders. When a founder invests the better part of a lifetime building a business, a long term orientation tends to permeate all aspects of the enterprise: employee selection and development, establishing and building symbiotic customer relationships, and evolving sophisticated product suites. Mark Leonard –...
I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. Benjamin Franklin - Amerikan politician, writer and scientist (1706-1790), from his attempt to the government "On the Price of Corn, and Management of the Poor" (1766)
If you could invest in only one of your fellow classmates, who would you choose? If you could buy, say, 10% of the future earnings of just one classmate, who would you choose? What would you look for? Warren Buffett - American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (*1930), freely adapted from a lecture to students at the University of Florida School of Business...
Thousands and millions of individuals work, produce and save ... They are prompted by a natural vocation rather than mere thirst for money. The taste, their pride in seeing one's company prosper, establish a reputation, inspire confidence from an ever-growing clientele, their pleasure in extending their facilities and embellishing their offices, constitute an incentive towards progress that...
Establishing and maintaining an unconventional investment profile requires acceptance of uncomfortably idiosyncratic portfolios, which frequently appear downright imprudent in the eyes of conventional wisdom. David F. Swensen - American investor, endowment fund manager, and philanthropist (1954-2021), from "Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional...
We would rather suffer the visible costs of a few bad decisions than incur the many invisible costs that come from decisions made too slowly – or not at all – because of a stifling bureaucracy. Warren Buffett – American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (b. 1930), in his letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders (2009), Quotations book 2024
Investing isn't an IQ test; it's a test of character. Jason Zweig – American journalist (b. 1959), in "Do You Know the Difference Between Being Rich and Being Wealthy?" ("The Wall Street Journal", August 8th, 2020), Quotations book 2024
We look for managers who are owners. Charles T. "Chuck" Akre, Jr. – American value investor, founder, CEO and CIO Akre Capital Management (b. 1942)
An owner-operator culture is the central idea expressed in our portfolio. Boiled down to our essential raison d'être, that’s it. We invest with talented people who have skin in the game. In other words, we invest in businesses where management and/or the board own a significant amount of stock. Chris Mayer – American investor and author (b. 1972), in "Art Imitates the Stock Market: Sixty...
There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. Samuel M. "Sam" Walton - American entrepreneur, founder of Walmart (1918-1992), quotations books 2004 + 2024
It is the responsibility of leadership to provide opportunity, and the responsibility of individuals to contribute. C. William Pollard - American entrepreneur, investor and author (b. 1938)
The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily. Morgan E. Housel – American investor and writer, partner at "Collaborative Fund" (b. 1983), from "The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness" (2020), Quotations book 2023
Financial success is not a hard science. It's a soft skill, where how you behave is more important than what you know. Morgan E. Housel – American investor and writer, partner at "Collaborative Fund" (b. 1983), from "The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness" (2020), Quotations book 2023
Times of adversity and customer screw-ups may be the only times when you can really show your customers how much you love them. Malcolm B. Decker - American copy writer (for "Wall Street Journal" and others) and company founder (1927-2015), Quotations book 2023