65 Golden Nuggets of Wisdom From Warren Buffett (That Work for Anyone)

If I was to give financial advice to my younger self, it would be to study Warren Buffett earlier. Hands down.

Years ago, I made a trip to Omaha, Nebraska to attend the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. What I found there blew my mind. Not only were Buffett and Charlie Munger witty and wise, but they were teachers to everyone in the audience. (Warren also spent a good deal of time trying to keep Charlie in line, which was wildly entertaining all by itself.)

What shocked me the most was how well Buffett took difficult concepts and broke them down into simple wisdom.

Of one thing I’m certain: follow Buffett’s advice and you’ll do well (in investing and life). It’s as simple as that.

Below is a beautiful cliff-notes version of Buffett’s best quotes and wisdom. You might want pen and paper on hand to take notes. There’s a lot of gold to absorb in the words below.

Warren’s Advice on Life and Living

1. “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”

2. “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”

Time is the only true currency you have. And once it’s gone. It’s gone.

Here’s a similar quote from him on time management:

“You’ve gotta keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.”

3. “Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble.”

4. “It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.”

5. “Games are won by players who focus on the playing field –- not by those whose eyes are glued to the scoreboard.”

Focus on the process. The progress. And the results will speak for themselves. If you’re too worried about your end result, you’ll miss opportunities and happiness along the way.

6. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

Buffett has talked a lot about the value of your reputation. He’s also said this:

“Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.”

7. “Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”

Seemingly small habits direct a massive portion of your life over time.

8. “If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.”

9. “If you’re in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%.”

Buffett has done this by donating most of his massive fortune.

10. “Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.”

11. “I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute. ”

What you believe will happen, often happens. It’s why working on your money mindset is such a crucial move.

12. “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

Stay grounded. And remember that you are where you are today because of someone else’s sacrifices before you.

13. “Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.”

You can’t take your money with you when you die.

14. “Honesty is a very expensive gift, Don’t expect it from cheap people.”

The Importance of Investing In Yourself

15. “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”

Check out 4 Lessons From Reading 52 Books in a Year >>

16. “One can best prepare themselves for the economic future by investing in your own education. If you study hard and learn at a young age, you will be in the best circumstances to secure your future.”

17. “Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be.”

18. “There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn’t that a little like saving up sex for your old age?”

19. “Imagine that you had a car and that was the only car you’d have for your entire lifetime. Of course, you’d care for it well, changing the oil more frequently than necessary, driving carefully, etc. Now, consider that you only have one mind and one body. Prepare them for life, care for them. You can enhance your mind over time. A person’s main asset is themselves, so preserve and enhance yourself.”

20. “The most important investment you can make is in yourself.”

21. “It’s what you do right now, today, that determines how your mind and body will operate ten, twenty, and thirty years from now.”

Things Don’t Have to Be So Hard

22. “There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.”

23. It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.”

Often, it’s not about swinging for the fences. But instead doing the fundamental things really well.

24. “The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.”

Think for Yourself

25. “Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.”

His complete disregard for doomsday predictions has always been one of the things I admire about him.

26. “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. 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.”

27. “I had a great teacher in life, my father. But I had another great teacher in terms of profession and Ben Graham. I was lucky enough to get the right foundation very early on. And then basically I didn’t listen to anybody else. I just look in the mirror every morning and the mirror always agrees with me. And I go out and do what I believe I should be doing. And I’m not influenced by what other people think.”

28. “Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”

Buffett’s Stock Market Investing Advice

29. “Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No.1”

30. “Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.”

31. “Keep things simple and don’t swing for the fences. When promised quick profits, respond with a quick “no.”

32. “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”

This is in reference to taking on too much risk or leverage. Don’t get caught swimming naked!

33. “Predicting rain doesn’t count, building the ark does.”

Building an emergency fund and not taking on more risk than you can handle are the best ways to build your personal ark.

34. “Never invest in a business you can not understand.”

35. “Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the models. Beware of geeks bearing formulas. ”

36. “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.”

37. “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

38. “After 25 years of buying and supervising a great variety of businesses, Charlie [Munger] and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them.”

39. “The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.”

40. “Speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest.”

41. “If returns are going to be 7 or 8 percent and you’re paying 1 percent for fees, that makes an enormous difference in how much money you’re going to have in retirement.”

42. “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price, than a fair company at a wonderful price.”

43. “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

44. “The three most important words in investing are margin of safety.”

45. “Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”

46. “Successful investing takes time, discipline, and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time.”

47. “Calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic.”

48. “The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient.”

49. “Our favorite holding period is forever.”

50. “Do not take yearly results too seriously. Instead, focus on four or five-year averages.”

51. “The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don’t have to swing at everything — you can wait for your pitch.”

52. “There is nothing wrong with a ‘know nothing’ investor who realizes it. The problem is when you are a ‘know nothing’ investor but you think you know something.”

53. “Buy a stock the way you would buy a house. Understand and like it such that you’d be content to own it in the absence of any market.”

Investing is Largely About Emotion

Over the years, he’s talked a lot about the role emotions play in investing. And how to cultivate the right temperament to leave your emotions at the door.

54. “Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies.”

55. “Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns.”

56. “What we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.”

57. “So smile when you read a headline that says ‘Investors lose as market falls.’ Edit it in your mind to ‘Disinvestors lose as market falls—but investors gain.’ Though writers often forget this truism, there is a buyer for every seller and what hurts one necessarily helps the other.”

58. “This does not bother Charlie [Munger] and me. Indeed, we enjoy such price declines if we have funds available to increase our positions.”

59. “Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy.”

60. “The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.”

61. “Success in investing doesn’t correlate with IQ … what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.”

62. “Remember that the stock market is a manic depressive.”

If you see the daily news, you’ll agree. It’s 90% about celebrating or vilifying the most dramatic ideas. Don’t get caught up in the madness.

63. “Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.”

64. “Widespread fear is your friend as an investor because it serves up bargain purchases.”

And lastly, Buffett has always kept a positive outlook on the country, regardless of president or economic situation. He says:

65. “For 240 years, it’s been a terrible mistake to bet against America, and now is no time to start.”

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