Warren Buffett Quotes

But successful investors tend to be not too self-destructive. They tend to be patient, they tend not to follow the crowd, and they tend not to be too guilty about winning.

After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!

Investing requires qualities of temperament way more than it requires qualities of intellect.

Only when you combine sound intellect with emotional discipline do you get rational behavior.

You can't make good decisions that are going to be meaningful, productive, when you lose control, and you have to maintain mental control, emotional control and to be able to perform physically up to your own particular level of competency; you have to keep your emotions under control.

An investor will succeed by coupling good business judgment with an ability to insulate his thoughts and behavior from the super-contagious emotions that swirl about the marketplace.

All of us would be better investors if we just made fewer decisions.

It's one of the most important things at the end of the day, being able to say no to an investment.

Prudence is what makes someone a great commodities trader - the capacity to face reality squarely in the eye without allowing emotion or ego to get in the way. It's what is needed by every quarterback or battlefield general.

The three traits speculators must learn to manage within themselves are confidence, fear, and aggressiveness.

Success in investing doesn't correlate with I.Q. once you're above the level of 25. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.

Eliminate emotion from your investment program.

Practice self-discipline and keep emotions under control. Good judgment and common sense are essential.

Without emotional control you cannot play, influence; you cannot react. You have to know what you have to do and not react. You have to be cool.

Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make big money.

Accustom yourself to submit on all and every occasion, and on the most minute, no less than on the most important circumstances of life, to a small present evil, to obtain a greater distant good. This will give decision, tone, and energy to the mind, which, thus disciplined, will often reap victory from defeat and honor from repulse.

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies.

It is obvious that the performance of a stock last year or last month is no reason, per se, to either own it or to not own it now. It is obvious that an inability to "get even" in a security that has declined is of no importance. It is obvious that the inner warm glow that results from having held a winner last year is of no importance in making a decision as to whether it belongs in an optimum portfolio this year.

Emotional Literacy means being able to recognise what you are feeling, so that it doesn't interfere with thinking. It becomes another dimension to draw upon when making decisions or encountering situations. Emotional expression by contrast can mean being driven by emotions, so that it isn't possible to think. These two things are often confused, because we are still uncomfortable with the idea of the validity of feelings.

Never buy a stock because it has gone up or sell one because it has gone down.

The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect.

Buffett’s genius was largely a genius of character—of patience, discipline, and rationality.

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

We make investment decisions based on our evaluation of the most profitable combination of probabilities.

Mastering our emotions has nothing to do with asceticism or repression, for the purpose is not to break the emotions or deny them but to "break in" the emotions, making them teachable because they are tamed.