99 Inspiring Quotes by Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, is celebrated not just for his unparalleled investment acumen but also for his timeless wisdom. As someone who has shaped the financial world with his insight and integrity, Buffett’s words resonate far beyond Wall Street.

In honor of his enduring influence, I’ve curated a collection of 99 inspiring quotes by Warren Buffett. These quotes capture the essence of his philosophy on life, business, and success—offering guidance and motivation to anyone looking to navigate their own journey with the same level-headed brilliance.

Inspiring Quotes by Warren Buffett

I think you’ll find some of them poignant and even simply entertaining:

1. “We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”
2. “You only get one mind and one body. And it’s got to last a lifetime.”
3. “The trick is, when there is nothing to do, do nothing.”
4. “You can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow … You haven’t missed the opportunity. Just forget about it for a day. If you feel the same way tomorrow, tell them — but don’t spout off in a moment of anger.”
5. “Please turn down all proposals for me to speak, make contributions, intercede with the Gates Foundation, etc. Sometimes these requests for you to act as intermediary will be accompanied by ‘It can’t hurt to ask.’ It will be easier for both of us if you just say no.”
6. “We never take the one-year figure very seriously. After all, why should the time required for a planet to circle the sun synchronize precisely with the time required for business actions to pay off? Instead, we recommend not less than a five-year test as a rough yardstick of economic performance.”
7. “An owner must weigh upside potential against downside risk; an option holder has no downside. … I’ll be happy to accept a lottery ticket as a gift — but I’ll never buy one.”
8. “We have no idea — and never have had — whether the market is going to go up, down, or sideways in the near or intermediate-term future.”
9. “My first mistake, of course, was in buying control of Berkshire. Though I knew its business — textile manufacturing — to be unpromising, I was enticed to buy because the price looked cheap. … In a difficult business, no sooner is one problem solved than another surfaces — never is there just one cockroach in the kitchen.”
10. “After some other mistakes, I learned to go into business only with people whom I like, trust, and admire. … We’ve never succeeded in making a good deal with a bad person.”
11. “Managers thinking about accounting issues should never forget one of Abraham Lincoln’s favorite riddles: How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? The answer: Four, because calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.”
12. “It’s better to have the money burning a hole in Berkshire’s pocket than resting comfortably in someone else’s. … I will never risk getting caught short of cash.”
13. “I am unable to speculate successfully, and I am skeptical of those who claim sustained success at doing so. Half of all coin flippers will win their first toss; none of those winners has an expectation of profit if he continues to play the game. And the fact that a given asset has appreciated in the recent past is never a reason to buy it.”
14. “Never forget that 2 + 2 will always equal 4. And when someone tells you how old-fashioned that math is — zip up your wallet, take a vacation, and come back in a few years to buy stocks at cheap prices.”
15. “In the world of business, the people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love.”
16. “Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you.”
17. “With very few exceptions, we have now ‘worked’ for many decades with people whom we like and trust. It’s a joy in life … In our home office, we employ decent and talented people — no jerks. Turnover averages, perhaps, one person per year.”
18. “Management in place. Find a good business that makes sense, and make sure there are good people running it.”
19. “What we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.”
20. “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”
21. “In investing, just as in baseball, to put runs on the scoreboard, one must watch the playing field, not the scoreboard.”
22. “I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.”
23. “I tell college students, when you get to be my age you will be successful if the people whom you hope to have love you, do love you.”
24. “If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.”
25. “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”
26. “The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.”
27. “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.”
28. “I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.”
29. “Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1.”
30. “You don’t ever ask a barber whether you need a haircut.”
31. “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
32. “Honesty is a very expensive gift. Don’t expect it from cheap people.”
33. “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.”
34. “A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.”
35. “If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.”
36. “There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.”
37. “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
38. “If you’re in the luckiest 1 percent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 percent.”
39. “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business.”
40. “Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends.”
41. “I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your résumé.”
42. “You can’t make a good deal with a bad person.”
43. “Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.”
44. “You know … you keep doing the same things and you keep getting the same result over and over again.”
45. “It’s much easier to stay out of trouble now than to get out of trouble later.”
46. “When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night’s sleep for the chance of extra profits.”
47. “Money will not change how healthy you are or how many people love you.”
48. “Don’t risk what is important to you, to get what is not important to you.”
49. “If you can tell me who your heroes are, I can tell you how you’re going to turn out in life.”
50. “Never lie under any circumstances.”
51. “If principles can become dated, they’re not principles.”
52. “Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.”
53. “I may have more money than you, but money doesn’t make the difference.”
54. “If there is any difference between you and me, it may simply be that I get up and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day. If you learn anything from me, this is the best advice I can give you.”
55. “Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results.”
56. “Never give up searching for the job that you’re passionate about. Try to find the job you’d have if you were independently rich. Forget about the pay. When you’re associating with the people that you love, doing what you love, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
57. “The one piece of advice I can give you is, do what turns you on. Do something that if you had all the money in the world, you’d still be doing it. You’ve got to have a reason to jump out of bed in the morning.”
58. “If you can’t communicate and talk to other people and get across your ideas, you’re giving up your potential.”
59. “If you’re extremely rich, and you’ve got children, my theory was, you give them enough so they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing.”
60. “I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people who have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about.”
61. “If you have more than 120 or 130 IQ points, you can afford to give the rest away. You don’t need extraordinary intelligence to succeed as an investor.”
62. “The only way to get love is to be lovable. It’s very irritating if you have a lot of money. You’d like to think you could write a check: ‘I’ll buy a million dollars’ worth of love.’ But it doesn’t work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get.”
63. “During inflation, goodwill is the gift that keeps on giving.”
64. “I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.”
65. “At age 19, I read a book, and what I’m doing today, at age 76, is running things through the same thought process I learned from the book I read at 19.”
66. “I like to go for cinches. I like to shoot fish in a barrel. But I like to do it after the water has run out.”
67. “There’s no use running if you’re on the wrong road.”
68. “Generally speaking, investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. Anything that improves your own talents; nobody can tax it or take it away from you.”
69. “I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place where society values my talent, and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the financial system to let me do what I love doing — and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that.”
70. “We don’t get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we’ll wait, we’ll wait indefinitely.”
71. “The most common cause of low prices is pessimism — sometimes pervasive, sometimes specific to a company or industry. We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism but because we like the prices it produces.”
72. “You shouldn’t own common stocks if a 50 percent decrease in their value in a short period of time would cause you acute distress.”
73. “You could take all the gold that’s ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 67 feet in each direction. For what that’s worth at current gold prices, you could buy all — not some — all of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy 10 Exxon Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take? Which is going to produce more value?”
74. “If you aren’t willing to own a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for 10 minutes.”
75. “This country is going to be living better 10 years from now than it is now. It will be living better in 20 years from now than 10 years from now. The ingredients that made this country, you know, the miracle of the world — I mean we had a seven for one improvement in the average American standard of living in the 20th century.”
76. “I am not worried about the country. I’m just worried about anything that gums up the potential of the country. And right now, it’s pretty gummed up.”
77. “I don’t try and guess when to get in and out of the market. I have owned stocks consistently since 1942. I was buying stocks the day before the election. I was buying the same stocks the day after the election.”
78. “Develop your eccentricities when young.”
79. “You may think this odd, but I have kept copies of every tax return I filed, starting with the return for 1944.”
80. “I’ll bring my tax returns; you bring yours. I’ll meet you anytime anywhere.”
81. “America should stand for more than just wealth.”
82. “I can do anything I want, basically, as long as it doesn’t involve athletic ability.”
83. “There is seldom just one cockroach in the kitchen. You know, you turn on the light and, all of sudden, they all start scurrying around.”
84. “There is no staff. I make all the investment decisions and I do all my own analysis.”
85. “I know that Congress will do the right thing.”
86. “If you want a government that’s going to do the things we ask our government to do, you’ve got to get it from somebody.”
87. “The capital gains tax is 15 percent now. So I sit there in my office and I make a lot of money by capital gains, and I pay 15 percent, and I pay no payroll tax on it. … The woman that comes in, takes the wastebasket away, she’s paying 15.3 percent or whatever it is on payroll tax alone. I mean it is–I never had it so good.”
88. “Just imagine living on $21,000 a year. I mean you have 20 percent of the population doing that. So you don’t have to worry about guys like me.”
89. “I think that actually people in my situation should be paying more tax.”
90. “You get in a lot of trouble when you start putting fictitious numbers.”
91. “I mean, you know, you’re not going to change the human animal. And the human animal really doesn’t get a lot smarter.”
92. “We look for things I can understand. A lot of businesses I don’t understand.”
93. “We’ve got all the ingredients for a sensational future.”
94. “I think confidence will come back.”
95. “At midnight, everything is going to turn to pumpkins and mice … You think why the hell should I leave at quarter of 12? I’ll leave at two minutes to 12. But the trouble is, there are no clocks on the wall. And everybody thinks they’re going to leave at two minutes to 12.”
96. “You get what I call the natural progression, the three i’s. The innovators, the imitators, and the idiots.”
97. “People should always know better.”
98. “You know, with your money and my brains, I mean, there’s no telling how far we’d go.”
99. “You don’t want 300 million Americans putting their money under the mattress.”

Conclusion:

As we wrap up this collection of 99 inspiring quotes by Warren Buffett, it’s clear that his wisdom extends far beyond the realm of finance. Each quote reflects a deep understanding of human nature, a strong moral compass, and an unwavering belief in the power of patience and perseverance.

Whether you’re an investor, entrepreneur, or simply someone seeking guidance in life, Buffett’s insights offer timeless lessons that can help you navigate challenges and seize opportunities. As you reflect on these words, remember that true success isn’t just about accumulating wealth—it’s about making thoughtful, informed decisions and living with integrity.

May these quotes continue to inspire you to think critically, act wisely, and live purposefully, just as Warren Buffett has throughout his remarkable life.