Warren Buffett Quotes

We don’t care what the cost-benefit is. We’re going to build it somehow because Congress says it’s going to be built.

Power is generally defined as control over resources and control over access to resources, which often means control over other people because we're thinking about things like financial resources or shelter, or even love and affection, but we also possess resources that we sometimes can't access.

Funded by the government just means funded by the people. Government, by the way, has no money. It only takes money from the people. Sometimes people forget that that's really what occurs.

I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president — which means, in our time, a dangerous president — unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.

A budget is not an issue. I mean a budget is used if you need more weeks or more time or more elements, but the creative process is exactly the same. In some instances you become more of a boss when you are doing a small movie. So that is not so relevant. The only thing is that the bigger a movie is in terms of budget, is that there are more people giving opinions.

I mean, voters had that kind of faith in Barack Obama and they had that kind of faith in Bill Clinton, but people having it in Donald Trump, since they think Trump is a bumpkin to begin with, that anybody who has blind faith in Trump's got to be an even bigger bumpkin.

Ninety percent of people support background checks. Which means even people who can't pass a background check support background checks.

I mean, the 1930s are the birth moment of modern public sector, government-driven infrastructure spending.

I was always told that if people don't want a picture with you, or they don't want an autograph from you, that doesn't mean you're not doing anything good.

As a rich country, we can, in some sense, "afford" the war. But spending money on the war means that we are not spending money on other things that we could have spent the money on.

There is talk ... of our constructing Dnieprostroy through our own means. The means needed are great, several hundred millions. Let us not get into the position of the peasant who, after accumulating a nest-egg, instead of repairing his plough and renewing his equipment, buys a gramophone and goes bankrupt.

When politics are used to allocate resources, the resources all end up being allocated to politics.

You know, if you're going to be honest with yourself, you have to admit that you go into show business wanting people to talk about you and wanting everyone to know who you are. But that also means there are going to be a whole bunch of people who don't like you. No matter who you are. I'm sure there's somebody out there who doesn't like Betty White because she's short and has white hair.

People often say that I represent people who earn a lot of money. Of course, a person who is well-educated and affluent is more likely to support me than Vladimir Putin. But that doesn't automatically mean that the others are against me.

Our focus was directed at developing the best possible and easiest to use product, and this is where we invested our time. Realize that you won't be able to bring the same focus to everything in the beginning. There won't be enough people or enough hours in the day. So, focus on the 20 percent that makes 80 percent of the difference.

The proposal is frequently made that the government ought to assume the risks that are "too great for private industry." This means that bureaucrats should be permitted to take risks with the tax payer's money that no one is willing to take with his own.

Feminism has had exactly the same problem that "political correctness" has had: people keep using the phrase without really knowing what it means.

Water is important to people who do not have it, and the same is true of control.

The government and its chiefs do not have the powers of the mythical Santa Claus. They cannot spend except by taking out of the pockets of some people for the benefit of others.

When you take the entire system into account, ways of developing more of something in one dimension can actually create scarcities in another. If we say we have to increase production because people need more food, more housing, more meat, or more milk, we can make one thing grow in a certain way. But by doing that we create externalities so that there are scarcities in other related things.

Some people make movies and think, "Well, I'll just keep asking for more money if this isn't enough." And then there are other people, like Clint Eastwood, who always come in under budget.

People'd be like, "Oh, spending taxpayer money." It's like, "No, no, I actually I'm paying for all of this. The only thing I don't pay for is Secret Service and an airplane."

I don't know if this is good politics or bad politics to criticize Trump, but you've got to call out, just like people in communities when people say racist things and feel it's OK now to be a sexist or a racist or a misogynist or a bigot, individuals have to call them out, I have to call them out when I see it. You have to call out this president when he engages, when he hires somebody that makes people even more uncomfortable. I mean, it's not a difference in policy. People in this country, the fear levels are higher than I can ever remember.

When I ran, people know I have a very big business. So I mean they elected me I guess partially for that reason.

Historians will not fail to note that a people who could spend $300 billion on defense refused to spend a tiny fraction of that total to keep their libraries open in the evening.