150+ Warren Buffett Quotes On Investing, Life & Success
Warren Buffett, an iconic figure in finance and life, has shared a treasure trove of wisdom through his enduring quotes. These quotes, which have become widely embraced, encapsulate his profound insights on investing, life, and the path to unparalleled success.
These most popular Warren Buffett quotes resonate because they distill complex ideas into simple, actionable insights. People use them as mantras to navigate the world of finance and life. They guide achieving long-term success, promoting patience, making well-thought-out decisions, and developing personally. These famous quotes by Warren Buffett are not just words; they are principles that have proven to be valuable and still inspire people from diverse backgrounds.
In this compilation of over 150 of Warren Buffett’s most popular quotes, we delve into his perspectives on investing wisely, living fully, and achieving success.
Most Popular Warren Buffett Quotes
Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1. – Warren Buffett
Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. – Warren Buffett
Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing. – Warren Buffett
We will have another bubble, but usually, you don’t get it the same way you got it before. – Warren Buffett
Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway. – Warren Buffett
Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. – Warren Buffett
The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don’t have to swing at everything — you can wait for your pitch. The problem when you’re a money manager is that your fans keep yelling, ‘Swing, you bum! – Warren Buffett
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. – Warren Buffett
Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. – Warren Buffett
Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does. – Warren Buffett
In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield. – Warren Buffett
The stock market is designed to transfer money from the impatient to the patient. – Warren Buffett
Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it. – Warren Buffett
It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price. – Warren Buffett
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently. – Warren Buffett
The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging. – Warren Buffett
Give your children enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing. – Warren Buffett
A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing. – Warren Buffett
If you understood a business perfectly and the future of the business, you would need very little in the way of a margin of safety. So, the more vulnerable the business is, assuming you still want to invest in it, the larger the margin of safety you’d need. If you’re driving a truck across a bridge that says it holds 10,000 pounds and you’ve got a 9,800-pound vehicle, if the bridge is 6 inches above the crevice it covers, you may feel okay; but if it’s over the Grand Canyon, you may feel you want a little larger margin of safety…– Warren Buffett
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. – Warren Buffett
Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that ‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’ Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down. – Warren Buffett
Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years. – Warren Buffett
Let us do or die. – Warren Buffett
When you get to my age,” he says, “you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. – Warren Buffett
The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything. – Warren Buffett
I used to buy a Coca-Cola six-pack for a quarter and sell them for a nickel each. I sold the Saturday Evening Post door to door. I sold the Ladies Home Journal. I had all kinds of little ventures, not all hugely successful I might add. I liked doing business early on. – Warren Buffett
It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results. – Warren Buffett
It’s only when the tide goes out that you discover who’s been swimming naked. – Warren Buffett
Honesty is a very expensive gift, Don’t expect it from cheap people. ― Warren Buffett
I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years. – Warren Buffett
Money is not everything. Make sure you earn a lot before speaking such nonsense.― Warren Buffett
You only have to do very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong. – Warren Buffett
Don’t watch the market closely. – Warren Buffett
You can’t make a good deal with a bad person. – Warren Buffett
Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble. – Warren Buffett
Remember that the stock market is a manic depressive. – Warren Buffett
We’re still in a recession. We’re not gonna be out of it for a while, but we will get out. – Warren Buffett
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. – Warren Buffett
I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute. – Warren Buffett
Never invest in a business you cannot understand. – Warren Buffett
Always know who you’re dealing with. – Warren Buffett
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 fewer impulse decisions than most people in the business. I do it because I like this kind of life. – Warren Buffett
The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball.
They know that overstaying the festivities — that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future — will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There’s a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands. – Warren Buffett
Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. – Warren Buffett
Time is the friend of a wonderful company. – Warren Buffett
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. – Warren Buffett
Our favorite holding period is forever. – Warren Buffett
If you aren’t thinking about owning a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for 10 minutes. – Warren Buffett
Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing. – Warren Buffett
We don’t have to be smarter than the rest; we have to be more disciplined than the rest. – Warren Buffett
The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective. – Warren Buffett
If you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control your money. – Warren Buffett
It’s class warfare; my class is winning, but they shouldn’t be. – Warren Buffett
The most important investment you can make is in yourself. – Warren Buffett
Successful investing takes time, discipline and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. – Warren Buffett
If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio’s market value.? – Warren Buffett
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. – Warren Buffett
I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me. – Warren Buffett
Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns. – Warren Buffett
What we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history. – Warren Buffett
My aunt gave me a world almanac, so I memorized the population of all cities of any real size. I just like numbers. It’s not limited to business numbers at all. – Warren Buffett
After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out. – Warren Buffett
When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements. – Warren Buffett
I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over. ― Warren Buffett
The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. To a degree, people read the press to inform themselves – and the better the teacher, the better the student body. – Warren Buffett
The light can at any time go from green to red without pausing in yellow. – Warren Buffett
I just sit in my office and read all day. – Warren Buffett
Widespread fear is your friend as an investor because it serves up bargain purchases. – Warren Buffett
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
The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes. – Warren Buffett
You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing. – Warren Buffett
If you’re in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%.
Cash combined with courage in a time of crisis is priceless. – Warren Buffett
Always stay rational. – Warren Buffett
Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy. – Warren Buffett
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ. – Warren Buffett
When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results. – Warren Buffett
If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians. – Warren Buffett
Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you who you’ll turn out to be. – Warren Buffett
Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results. – Warren Buffett
There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult. – Warren Buffett
Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future. – Warren Buffet
Never give up searching for the job that you’re passionate about. – Warren Buffett
If you buy things you don’t need, you will soon sell things you need. – Warren Buffett
Can you really explain to a fish what it’s like to walk on land? One day on land is worth a thousand years of talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value.
You can turn any investment into a bad deal by paying too much. What you can’t do is turn something into a good deal by paying little. – Warren Buffett
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. – Warren Buffett
The only way to get love is to be lovable. It’s very irritating if you have a lot of money. You’d like to think you could write a check: ‘I’ll buy a million dollars’ worth of love.’ But it doesn’t work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get. – Warren Buffett
The years ahead will occasionally deliver major market declines — even panics — that will affect virtually all stocks. No one can tell you when these traumas will occur. – Warren Buffett
A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought. – Warren Buffett
Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they’re doing. – Warren Buffett
I delivered about 500 000 papers and made an about a penny apiece. So I made about $5 000 delivering papers. – Warren Buffett
The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth. – Warren Buffett
You should not buy any business and hold it for the long-run. Businesses with strong competitive advantages and quality management are preferred long-term holdings. – Warren Buffett
Not doing what we love in the name of greed is the very poor management of our lives. ― Warren Buffett
Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote. – Warren Buffett
When major declines occur, they offer extraordinary opportunities to those who are not handicapped by debt,” Buffett wrote in a letter to Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders in 2017, highlighting the argument against ever borrowing money to buy stocks. – Warren Buffett
I measure success by how many people love me. – Warren Buffett
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
An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it. – Warren Buffett
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. – Warren Buffett
You know… you keep doing the same things and you keep getting the same result over and over again. – Warren Buffett
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. – Warren Buffett
Buy a business, don’t rent stocks. – Warren Buffett
Bad things aren’t obvious when times are good. – Warren Buffett
I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for re-election. – Warren Buffett
Our approach is very much profiting from a lack of change rather than from change. With Wrigley chewing gum, it’s a lack of change that appeals to me. I don’t think it is going to be hurt by the Internet. That’s the kind of business I like. – Warren Buffett
If a business does well, the stock eventually follows. – Warren Buffet
The people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love. – Warren Buffet
We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet. – Warren Buffett
Do not save what is left after spending; instead, spend what is left after saving. – Warren Buffett
We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time. – Warren Buffett
Never get too hung up on mistakes. – Warren Buffett
Without passion, you don’t have energy. Without energy, you have nothing. – Warren Buffett
It is more important to say ‘no’ to an opportunity than to say ‘yes. – Warren Buffett
My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest. – Warren Buffett
In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. – Warren Buffett
If you like spending six to eight hours per week working on investments, do it. If you don’t, then dollar-cost average into index funds. – Warren Buffett
I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here. – Warren Buffett
[Benjamin] Graham would tell you that the market is there to serve you, not to inform you. And basically he would tell you that sometimes the market will be very, very wrong. And if you look at stock prices as buying pieces of businesses, you will be able to recognize when the market is very wrong. – Warren Buffett
We’ve long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good. – Warren Buffett
Charlie and I would follow a buy-and-hold policy even if we ran a tax-exempt institution. – Warren Buffett
Watch this pickpocket! “A hyperactive stock market is the pickpocket of the enterprise. ― Warren Buffett
When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact. – Warren Buffett
Stocks [have] been so much more attractive than bonds. – Warren Buffett
For the investor, a too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favorable business developments. – Warren Buffett
The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard. – Warren Buffett
A climate of fear is your friend when investing; a euphoric world is your enemy. – Warren Buffett
Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We’ll break out of it. It takes time. – Warren Buffett
I have pledged — to you, the rating agencies and myself – to always run Berkshire with more ample cash. We never want to count on the kindness of strangers in order to meet tomorrow’s obligations. When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night’s sleep for the chance of extra profits. – Warren Buffett
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. – Warren Buffett
You ought to be able to explain why you’re taking the job you’re taking, why you’re making the investment you’re making, or whatever it may be. And if it can’t stand applying pencil to paper, you’d better think it through some more. And if you can’t write an intelligent answer to those questions, don’t do it. – Warren Buffett
I believe in giving my kids enough so they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing. – Warren Buffett
If you can tell me who your heroes are, I can tell you how you’re going to turn out. It’s really important to have the right heroes. – Warren Buffett
If you are in a poker game and after 20 minutes you don’t know who the patsy is, then you’re the patsy. – Warren Buffett
If calculus or algebra were required to be a great investor, I’d have to go back to delivering newspapers. – Warren Buffett
The important thing is to look for the job you would take if you didn’t need a job. – Warren Buffett
What an investor need are the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that the word ‘selected’: 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 important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital. – Warren Buffett
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. – Warren Buffett
Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business. – Warren Buffett
My sales pitch wasn’t very effective. I was 20 years old, I looked like I was about 16 and probably behaved like I was about twelve. – Warren Buffett
You really don’t need leverage in this world much. If you’re smart, you’re going to make a lot of money without borrowing. – Warren Buffett
Stocks of companies selling commodity-like products should come with a warning label: ‘Competition may prove hazardous to human wealth. – Warren Buffett
The Greatest Enemies of Equity Investors are Expenses and Emotions. ― Warren Buffett
We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds. – Warren Buffett
It is a terrible mistake for investors with long-term horizons — among them pension funds, college endowments, and savings-minded individuals — to measure their investment ‘risk’ by their portfolio’s ratio of bonds to stocks. – Warren Buffett
All there is to invest is picking good stocks at good times and staying with them as long as they remain good companies. – Warren Buffett
I think that both parties should declare the debt limit as a political weapon of mass destruction which can’t be used. I mean, it is silly to have a country that has 237 years building up its reputation and then have people threaten to tear it down because they’re not getting some other matter. – Warren Buffett
I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will. – Warren Buffett
There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we’ve got a system that allows them to do it. – Warren Buffett
I really like my life. I’ve arranged my life so that I can do what I want. – Warren Buffett
In the short term, the market is a popularity contest. In the long term, the market is a weighing machine.– Warren Buffett
If you can’t communicate and get your ideas across you’re giving up your potential. Learn how to communicate well. – Warren Buffett
Focus on your customers and lead your people as though their lives depend on your success. – Warren Buffett
Stop trying to predict the direction of the stock market; the economy, interest rates, or elections. – Warren Buffett
I tell college students when you get to be my age you will be successful if the people who you hope to have loved you, do love you. – Warren Buffett
I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about. – Warren Buffett
Keep things simple and don’t swing for the fences. When promised quick profits, respond with a quick, no. – Warren Buffett
An educational approach to money and investing struck me as a very good idea. People do form behavior habits very young in matters of money. I get calls every day from people who are in a financial hole. – Warren Buffett
I had to communicate with people better. I couldn’t go through life afraid of public speaking and I’d heard about the Dale Carnegie course. – Warren Buffett
A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse—not a remarkable mathematician. – Warren Buffett
Smart doesn’t always equal rational. To be a successful investor you must divorce yourself from the fears and greed of the people around you, although it is almost impossible. ― Warren Buffett
I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of – of American capitalism. – Warren Buffett
Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless. – Warren Buffett
By periodically investing in an index fund, the know-nothing investors can actually outperform most investment professionals. – Warren Buffett
We don’t get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we will wait, we’ll wait indefinitely. – Warren Buffett
I just think that – when a country needs more income and we do, we’re only taking in 15 percent of GDP, I mean, that – that – when a country needs more income, they should get it from the people that have it. – Warren Buffett
If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.– Warren Buffett
Sound investing can make you very wealthy if you’re not in too big a hurry. – Warren Buffett
I have no idea on timing. It’s easier to tell what will happen than when it will happen. I would say that what is going on in terms of trade policy is going to have very important consequences. – Warren Buffett
Investing is like baseball. If you want to score runs, don’t study the scoreboard, study the playing field. – Warren Buffett
It’s a very strange thing, love: you can’t get rid of it. If you try to give it out you get more back. If you try to hang on to it, you lose it. – Warren Buffett
I had the intellect to succeed, but I didn’t have the persona. – Warren Buffett
If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper-middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end – people like myself – should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it. – Warren Buffett
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.. – Warren Buffett
For some reason, people take their cues from price action rather than from values. What doesn’t work is when you start doing things that you don’t understand or because they worked last week for somebody else. The dumbest reason in the world to buy a stock is because it’s going up. – Warren Buffett
It’s never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but it’s not always a smooth ride. – Warren Buffett
Never depend on a single income. Make investments to create a second source. – Warren Buffett
Things that you like to do should be a hobby of yours, but things the world like to do should be a business of yours. – Warren Buffett
Take a page from Buffett’s book of wisdom and apply these most popular Warren Buffett quotes to your journey towards success and fulfillment.