The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.

"I just sit in my office and read all day"

"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 won't say if my candidate doesn't win, and probably half the time they haven't, I'm going to take my ball and go home"

"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."

"The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything."

Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble."

"Widespread fear is your friend as an investor because it serves up bargain purchases."

"Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down."

"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."

It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

"You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant."

"If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes."

"When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever."

"An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it."

"Since I know of no way to reliably predict market movements, I recommend that you purchase Berkshire shares only if you expect to hold them for at least five years. Those who seek short-term profits should look elsewhere."

"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."

"All there is to investing is picking good stocks at good times and staying with them as long as they remain good companies."

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

"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."

"The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging."

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

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

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

"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."

"The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don't have to swing at everything -- you can wait for your pitch."

"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."

"When trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients."

"Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway."

"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."

Too-big-to-fail is not a fallback position at Berkshire. Instead, we will always arrange our affairs so that any requirements for cash we may conceivably have will be dwarfed by our own liquidity."

"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."

"Cash ... is to a business as oxygen is to an individual: never thought about when it is present, the only thing in mind when it is absent"

The one thing I will tell you is the worst investment you can have is cash. Everybody is talking about cash being king and all that sort of thing. Cash is going to become worth less over time. But good businesses are going to become worth more over time."

Charlie and I view the marketable common stocks that Berkshire owns as interests in businesses, not as ticker symbols to be bought or sold based on their "chart" patterns, the "target" prices of analysts, or the opinions of media pundits.

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.

Buy into a company because you want to own it, not because you want the stock to go up.

Never invest in a business you cannot understand."

"Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."

"If you don't feel comfortable making a rough estimate of the asset's future earnings, just forget it and move on."

"Buy companies with strong histories of profitability and with a dominant business franchise."

"We want products where people feel like kissing you instead of slapping you."

"One thing that could help would be to write down the reason you are buying a stock before your purchase. Write down "I am buying Microsoft at $300 billion because..." Force yourself to write this down. It clarifies your mind and discipline."

"The most important investment you can make is in yourself."

"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."

"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."

"In the 54 years (Charlie Munger and I) have worked together, we have never forgone an attractive purchase because of the macro or political environment, or the views of other people. In fact, these subjects never come up when we make decisions."

"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. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497."

"We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children."

"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."