25/ "We’re not crying wolf at how hard it is to compound at old rates—it can’t be done. Look how tough it is to earn $100M pretax doing anything; few ever accomplish it. Then $1B, then $5B and then $10B. One of the smartest things you can do is dampen investment expectations."
26/ "Understanding both the power of compound return and the difficulty of getting it is the heart and soul of understanding a lot of things. Never interrupt it unnecessarily.
We have this investment discipline of waiting for a fat pitch."
We have this investment discipline of waiting for a fat pitch."
27/" If I was offered the chance to go into business where people would measure me against benchmarks, force me to be fully invested, crawl around looking over my shoulder, etc., I would hate it. I would regard it as putting me into shackles."
28/ "Even bright people are going to have limited, really valuable insights in a very competitive world when they’re fighting against other very bright, hardworking people. It makes sense to load up on the very few good insights you have instead of pretending to know everything."
29/ "It’s hard to judge the combination of character and intelligence and other things. It’s not at all simple, which explains why we have so many divorces. If you have some unfortunate experiences while getting that knowledge, well, welcome to the human race."
30/ "When I run into a paradox I think either I’m a total horse’s ass to have gotten to this point, or I’m fruitfully near the edge of my discipline. It adds excitement to life to wonder which it is.”
31/ "How you behave in one place, will help in surprising ways later. If you rise in life, you have to behave in a certain way. You can go to a strip club if you’re a beer-swilling sand shoveler, but if you’re the Bishop of Boston, you shouldn’t go."
32/ "Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts."
33/ "You build discipline by preparing for fast spurts… Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day, at the end of the day — if you live long enough — most people get what they deserve.”
34/ "You don’t want to be like the motion picture exec who had many people at his funeral who were there to make sure he was dead. At his funeral, a priest asked, “Won’t anyone stand up and say anything nice for the deceased?” Finally someone said, “His brother was worse.”
35/ The words were all Charlie Munger except for maybe 7 tiny edits. The organization of his thoughts over a few decades of talking and writing was mine. I tried to put it in his voice. It's my tribute to an original thinker like my book on him. I tried to help people learn more.
