Warren Buffett · 246 pages
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“A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse—not a remarkable mathematician.”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor “is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic.”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“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. (As they say in golf matches: “Every putt makes someone happy.”)”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“as happens in Wall Street all too often, what the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“Having firstrate people on the team is more important than designing hierarchies and clarifying who reports to whom”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“(Thomas J. Watson Sr. of IBM followed the same rule: “I’m no genius,” he said. “I’m smart in spots—but I stay around those spots.”)”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“The requisites for board membership should be business savvy, interest in the job, and owner-orientation.”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“this holding has proved extraordinarily profitable thanks to a move by your Chairman that combined luck and skill—110% luck, the balance skill.”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“say, a 2:1 ratio than it is to have far greater coverage provided by a single utility. A catastrophic event can render a single utility insolvent—witness what”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“thought then that decent, intelligent, and experienced managers would automatically make rational business decisions. But I learned over time that isn’t so. Instead, rationality frequently wilts when the institutional imperative comes into play. For example: (1) As if governed by Newton’s First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated.”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“Loss of focus is what most worries Charlie and me when we contemplate investing in businesses that in general look outstanding. All too often, we’ve seen value stagnate in the presence of hubris or of boredom that caused the attention of managers to wander.”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“You don’t have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“What counts for most people in investing is not how much they know, but rather how realistically they define what they don't know.”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“Culture, more than rule books, determines how an organization behaves.”
― Warren Buffett, quote from The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
“Look, everyone talks about the unknown like it's some big scary thing, but it's the familiar that's always bothered me. It's heavy, builds up around you like rocks, until it's walls and a ceiling and a cell.”
― V.E. Schwab, quote from A Gathering of Shadows
“Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, quote from Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
“I want to rip his damn arms off his body Ash. Sawyer, who I'd do anything for. I want to hurt him. If he touches you again in front of me I'm going to crack. I can't take this”
― Abbi Glines, quote from The Vincent Boys
“And secondly, losing your virginity doesn't make you a slut. I slept with your father when I was your age. . . '
'Mia,' my father roared from the other room.
'What? So we're going to lie to her now,?' she shouted back.
He walked in. 'What if your mother finds out? Or my mother?'
'Robert, it was twenty years ago. I don't think there's much they can do.'
He looked at me, pointing a finger. 'No sex for you.' He used the Soup Nazi's accent from Seinfeld.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Saving Francesca
“What in Hood's name are you doing down here?'
'Hiding, what's it look like? That's always been your problem, Kal, your lack of subtlety. Sooner or later it's going to get you into trouble. Is it dark yet?'
'No. Listen, what's with this damned gale up top? It's all wrong-'
'You just noticed?'
Kalam scowled in the gloom. Well, at least he'd found the wizard. The High Mage of the Fourteenth, hiding between crates and casks and bales. Oh, how bloody encouraging is that?
...
Quick Ben moved further into the narrow space between cargo. 'Here, there's room.'
After a moment, Kalam joined him. 'You got anything to eat? Drink?'
'Naturally.'
'Good.”
― Steven Erikson, quote from The Bonehunters
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