Smart Investing Quotes

I've seen more people fail because of liquor and leverage -- leverage being borrowed money. 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.

If you have more than 120 or 130 I.Q. points, you can afford to give the rest away. You don't need extraordinary intelligence to succeed as an investor.

The only intelligence investing is value investing...to acquire more than one is paying for.

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. I've never borrowed a significant amount of money in my life. Never. Never will. I've got no interest in it.

Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing so wide diversification is only required when investors are ignorant. You only have to do a very few things in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.

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.

An amazing piece of advice for a lot of kids, 50-year-olds, whoever is listening right now: Saving money is a good strategy. I didn't have stuff, but it was because my parents were saving. They were saving. We didn't get toys. They told us to go outside and paint a rock. It was very, very smart because after seven or eight years, he was able to buy a liquor store of his own in Springfield, New Jersey - Shoppers Discount Liquors. He built up a great business.

Fund consultants like to require style boxes such as "long-short," "macro," "international equities." At Berkshire our only style box is "smart."

If you have the opportunities of Berkshire, an investment in gold is dumb.

...in terms of business mistakes that I've seen over a long lifetime, I would say that trying to minimize taxes too much is one of the great standard causes of really dumb mistakes. I see terrible mistakes from people being overly motivated by tax considerations. Warren and I personally don't drill oil wells. We pay our taxes. And we've done pretty well, so far. Anytime somebody offers you a tax shelter from here on in life, my advice would be don't buy it.

I try to stay ahead of things, if you know what I mean. I take the money I make and reinvest it.

I haven't been somebody who's been smart about his money. There are a couple of actors who are quite brilliant with the way they've handled their money. But they're not very good actors.

So you can get very remarkable investment results if you think more like a winning pari-mutuel player. Just think of it as a heavy odds against game full of craziness with an occasional mispriced something or other. And you're probably not going to be smart enough to find thousands in a lifetime. And when you get a few, you really load up. It's just that simple.

Money can make money if you're intelligent about it and don't waste it the wrong way.

Billionaire investors know they're going to be wrong, so they have a plan to protect against wrong.

Sometimes you have to wait for the right deal. They all seem good, at least at first, and they may make you some quick money. But when the right deal comes, and it fits into your [overall] plan, it's just overwhelming success. Sometimes, with the long-term deals, you have to take a risk if you're going to get a reward. It's exactly like fighting. Sometimes you have to take chances to get that huge win.

Investors must keep in mind that there's a difference between a good company and a good stock. After all, you can buy a good car but pay too much for it.

Investing is not nearly as difficult as it looks. Successful investing involves doing a few things right and avoiding serious mistakes.

Don't go and invest across the country somewhere that you don't know. Invest in a market that you know, because there are great areas in every city.

Losing some money is an inevitable part of investing, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. But to be an intelligent investor, you must take responsibility for ensuring that you never lose most or all of your money.

I never heard of anyone saying they want to deploy their capital wisely and go buy a sports franchise. What you want to do is just not lose money. You see, I don't have to work anymore. I tell people I don't have a real job. On the other hand, I learned long ago that you can't go broke if you turn a profit.

It's better to do nothing with your money than something you don't understand.

Invest in what you know.

One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is something to do. Most people – not that I’m better than most people – always have to be playing; they always have to be doing something. They make a big play and say, “Boy, am I smart, I just tripled my money.” Then they rush out and have to do something else with that money. They can’t just sit there and wait for something new to develop

Heavy lifting doesn't need to be heavy spending if we do the job right.