Charlie Munger, the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and long-time business partner of Warren Buffett, is known for his wisdom on investing, business, and life. Here are some of his most famous quotes:
1. “The big money is not in the buying and selling… but in the waiting.” – This quote emphasizes the importance of patience in investing.
2. “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.” – Munger believes in avoiding foolish decisions rather than trying to be overly smart.
3. “Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.” – Munger often talks about the power of incentives in shaping behavior.
4. “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.” – Munger stresses the importance of learning from others.
5. “Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.” – Acknowledging your limitations can be more beneficial than having exceptional intelligence.
6. “Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world.” – Focus on what matters most rather than trying to do everything.
7. “Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up.” – Continuous learning and self-improvement are key to success.
8. “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.” – Munger is a big advocate of reading and lifelong learning.
9. “The first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ’em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form.” – Understanding the connections between facts is more important than the facts themselves.
10. “It’s not supposed to be easy. Anyone who finds it easy is stupid.” – Success requires hard work and effort.
11. “People calculate too much and think too little.” – This quote emphasizes the importance of critical thinking over mere calculations.
12. “A lot of people with high IQs are terrible investors because they’ve got terrible temperaments. You need to keep raw, irrational emotion under control.” – Emotional intelligence is just as important as intellectual intelligence in investing.
13. “You don’t have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long time.” – Consistency and patience often beat brilliance in the long run.
14. “The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more.” – Munger values knowledge and believes in the power of sharing it.
15. “Those who keep learning, will keep rising in life.” – Lifelong learning is the key to continuous growth and success.
16. “I’ve worked in an environment all my life where if I wasn’t reading, I wasn’t working.” – Reading is a crucial part of Munger’s work and success.
17. “We have a passion for keeping things simple.” – Simplicity is often more effective than complexity.
18. “I think that one should recognize reality even when one doesn’t like it; indeed, especially when one doesn’t like it.” – Acknowledging reality, even when it’s unpleasant, is crucial for making wise decisions.
19. “There’s danger in just shoveling out money to people who say, ‘My life is a little harder than it used to be.’ At a certain place you’ve got to say to the people, ‘Suck it in and cope, buddy. Suck it in and cope.'” – Munger believes in resilience and self-reliance.
20. “I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.” – Persistence and focus can often lead to greater success than intelligence alone.