Top 50 Warren Buffett Quotes

Warren Buffett Quotes have long been a way for every day investors to tap into Buffett’s mind and investing philosophy. The famous value investor, and Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He has lived through many crises, has seen companies grow and go bust, made many investing mistakes and learnt from them. He has a very slapstick way of teaching investing with his quotes. Below we have compiled 50 of the best Warren Buffett Quotes to help make financial freedom simple!

Starting From The Beginning 

Investing is the act of making money from money, and for that, you first need to earn money. But when you have liquidity, the urge to spend often beats the need to save and invest. Warren Buffett understands this concept very well. He addressed this issue in a few quotes.

1. “Do not save what is left after expending, but spend what is left after saving.”
2. “Never depend on a single income. Make investments to create a second source.”

Warren Buffett Quotes: Investing in The Stock Market 

Once you have the money to invest, the question is how to begin, which stock to buy, and at what price. These quotes of Buffett sum up his stock picking and the buy-and-hold strategy.

1. “Rule no. 1: Never lose money. Rule no. 2: Never forget rule number 1.”
2. “Buy a stock the way you would buy a house. Understand and like it such that you’d be content to own it in the absence of any market.”
3. “Never invest in a business you cannot understand.”
4. “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.”
5. “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient, to the patient.”
6. “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
7. “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”
8. “Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”
9. “Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.”
10. “Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.”

Investing Is Not About Intelligence, But Rather Patience

When investing, you might come across many jargons and technical reports. Do not get swayed by them.

1. “There is nothing wrong with a ‘know nothing’ investor who realizes it. The problem is when you are a ‘know nothing’ investor but you think you know something.”
2. “The important thing is to know what you know and know what you don’t know.”
3. “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.”
4. “Success in investing doesn’t correlate with IQ … what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.”

Buffett preaches patience. Investing is like owning a business. You have to give it time to grow, make mistakes, fall, and rise.

1. “If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes.”
2. “Successful investing takes time, discipline, and patience. No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
3. “If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.”
4. “All there is to investing is picking good stocks at good times and staying with them as long as they remain good companies.”

Warren Buffett Quotes: Due Diligence 

Buffett avoided investing in technology stocks because he didn’t understand them. Now he is avoiding cryptocurrency for the same reason. He has been criticized for missing out on these high-growth opportunities. But then, he is content not being the world’s richest man in a particular year. He prefers being among the top 10 richest men consistently for decades.

1. “The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don’t have to swing at everything — you can wait for your pitch.”
2. “You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.”
3. “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business.”
4. “Do not take yearly results too seriously. Instead, focus on four or five-year averages.”
5. “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”
6. “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”

Warren Buffett on Investing Risks 

There is no denying that the stock market comes with risks. Many have this notion that a value investor is risk-averse. But the truth is a value investor like Buffett prefers taking a calculated risk.

He took many risks but mitigated losses with an alternative. After all, he can’t breach Rule No 1. Never Lose Money.

1. “I never attempt to make money in the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”
2. “You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in – in 2007, we just didn’t know it was uncertain. It was – uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn’t know it.”
3. “Predicting rains doesn’t count, building arks does.”
4. “The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.”
5. “Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”

Warren Buffett Quotes: Investing on Wall Street

It’s too much preaching. Here are some slapstick quotes that make Buffett the jolly investor he is.

1. “Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”
2. “When trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients.”
3. “Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.”
4. “In my view, for most people, the best thing is to do is owning the S&P 500 index fund. There are huge amounts of money people pay for advice they really don’t need.”
5. “Money is not everything. Make sure you earn a lot before speaking such nonsense.”

Common Misconceptions About Investing

Buffett also talks about some common misconceptions about investing. It is not always about investing regularly, but investing when there is opportunity.

1. “You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.”
2. “Don’t pass up something that’s attractive today because you think you will find something better tomorrow.”

Another common mistake investors do is hoarding cash when they are skeptical about investing in stocks. But little do they know that hoarding cash has a cost.

1. “Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.”

Another common mistake is making decisions based on past performance.

1. “If past history was all that is needed to play the game of money, the richest people would be librarians.”
2. “What we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.”
3. “The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.”

Warren Buffett’s Life Lessons 

While Buffett eats, sleeps, drinks investing, he is but a human and has had his fair share of learning from his life experiences.

1. “Honesty is a very expensive gift, Don’t expect it from cheap people.”
2. “You cannot make a good deal with a bad person.”
3. “Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
4. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you’ll do things differently.”
5. “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.”
6. “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”
7. “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.”

All-time favourite Warren Buffett quote. Buffett says that this investment ”supersedes all others.”

1. “Your best investment is in yourself. There is nothing that compares to it.”