Quotes

Quotes are compressed insight. A good one packs an idea someone spent a lifetime arriving at into a sentence that we can absorb in seconds. Quotes expose us to ways of thinking we might never reach on our own, work as memorable anchors for principles that are otherwise abstract, and can genuinely shift how we frame a decision or a problem.

Since 2009, I have collected interesting quotes from the many books I have read, from encounters with remarkable people, from lines that arrived quietly and refused to leave. Each of the quotes here, in its own way, made me stop and reconsider something I thought I understood. Slowly, they helped me grow into a better version of myself. I would like to share the quotes with you, in the hope that they help you, as they have helped me.

Warren Buffett

1. “The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities — that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future — will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There's a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.”

   — Berkshire Hathaway, 2000 Chairman's Letter

   
   

2. “Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, 'I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.' If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.”

   — Berkshire Hathaway, 2005 Chairman's Letter

   
   

3. “If I was running $1 million today, or $10 million for that matter, I'd be fully invested. Anyone who says that size does not hurt investment performance is selling. The highest rates of return I've ever achieved were in the 1950s. I killed the Dow. You ought to see the numbers. But I was investing peanuts then. It's a huge structural advantage not to have a lot of money. I think I could make you 50% a year on $1 million. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.”

   — "Homespun Wisdom from the 'Oracle of Omaha'", BusinessWeek, 5 July 1999

   
   

4. “I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute.”

   
   

5. At the bottom of the bear market in October 1974 a Forbes article interviewed Buffett—for the first time in his life making a public prediction about the stock market. “How do you feel?” Forbes asked. “Like an oversexed guy in a whorehouse. Now is the time to invest and get rich.”

   
   

6. “I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”

   — Lecturing to a group of students at Columbia University. He was 21 years old.

   
   

7. “I call investing the greatest business in the world because you never have to swing. You stand at the plate, the pitcher throws you General Motors at 47! U.S. Steel at 39! and nobody calls a strike on you. There's no penalty except opportunity lost. All day you wait for the pitch you like; then when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it.”

   
   

8. “The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don't have to swing at everything—you can wait for your pitch. The problem when you're a money manager is that your fans keep yelling, 'Swing, you bum!'”

   — 1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

   
   

9. “Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they're doing.”

   
   

10. “I'd be a bum on the street with a tin cup if the markets were always efficient.”

    — Warren Buffett on Efficient Market Hypothesis

    
    

11. “If you understood a business perfectly and the future of the business, you would need very little in the way of a margin of safety. So, the more vulnerable the business is, assuming you still want to invest in it, the larger margin of safety you'd need. If you're driving a truck across a bridge that says it holds 10,000 pounds and you've got a 9,800 pound vehicle, if the bridge is 6 inches above the crevice it covers, you may feel okay, but if it's over the Grand Canyon, you may feel you want a little larger margin of safety. You'd want to leave yourself an enormous margin of safety. You build a bridge that 30,000-pound trucks can go across and then you drive 10,000-pound trucks across it. That is the way I like to go across bridges.”

    — On Margin of Safety — 1997 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting; Financial World, June 13, 1984

    
    

12. “The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect… You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.”

    
    

13. “Of one thing be certain: if a CEO is enthused about a particularly foolish acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his stance. Only in fairy tales are emperors told that they are naked.”

    
    

14. “In 1971, pension fund managers invested a record 122% of net funds available in equities — at full prices they couldn't buy enough of them. In 1974, after the bottom had fallen out, they committed a then record low of 21% to stocks.”

    
    

15. “Wall Street is the only place that people ride to work in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”

    
    

16. “Working with people who cause your stomach to churn seems much like marrying for money — probably a bad idea under any circumstances, but absolute madness if you are already rich.”

    
    

17. “Look at the business you run as if it were the only asset of your family, one that must be operated for the next 50 years and can never be sold.”

    
    

18. “We can afford to lose money — even a lot of money. We cannot afford to lose reputation — even a shred of reputation.”

    
    

19. “You should invest in a business that even a fool can run, because someday a fool will.”

    
    

20. “The great personal fortunes in the country weren't built on a portfolio of fifty companies. They were built by someone who identified one wonderful business. With each investment you make, you should have the courage and the conviction to place at least 10% of your net worth in that stock.”

    
    

21. “Unless you can watch your stock holdings decline by 50% without becoming panic-stricken, you should not be in the stock market.”

    
    

22. “Leverage is the only way a smart guy can go broke… You do smart things, you eventually get very rich. If you do smart things and use leverage and you do one wrong thing along the way, it could wipe you out, because anything times zero is zero. But it's reinforcing when the people around you are doing it successfully, you're doing it successfully, and it's a lot like Cinderella at the ball. The guys look better all the time, the music sounds better, it's more and more fun, you think, 'Why the hell should I leave at a quarter to 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.”

    
    

23. “Sometimes the best investment decisions are the ones you don't make.”

Charlie Munger

24. “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn't read all the time — none, zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren reads — at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”

    
    

25. “Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant.”

    
    

26. “A lot of people with high IQs are terrible investors because they've got terrible temperaments.”

    
    

27. “If you want to ruin your life, spend it trying to change your spouse.”

    
    

28. “The first rule of a happy life is low expectations.”

    
    

29. “You only get a few opportunities, and you have to grab them aggressively when they come because even in the most favored life, they're really rare.”

    
    

30. “I lived all my life with people who were into deferred gratification. In fact most of them will never have any fun. They just defer gratification all the way to end, that's what we do. And it does cause you to get rich.”

    
    

31. “If you're glued together and honorable, get up every morning, keep learning every day and you're willing to go-in for a lot of deferred gratification all your life, you're going to succeed.”

    
    

32. “If you're absolutely sure you're right, then you're probably committing a significant intellectual sin.”

    
    

33. “I knew a guy who had $5 million and owned his house free and clear. But he wanted to make a bit more money to support his spending, so at the peak of the internet bubble he was selling puts on internet stocks. He lost all of his money and his house and now works in a restaurant.”

    
    

34. “I would argue that passion is more important than brainpower.”

    
    

35. “I want to learn as much as I can vicariously. It's too painful to do it by personal hardship.”

    
    

36. “Some people collect stamps. I collect insanities and absurdities. And then I avoid them…”

    
    

37. “I collect big calamities in my head and big stupidities. I do that so I can avoid them.”

    
    

38. “We recognized early on that very smart people do very dumb things, and we wanted to know why and who, so that we could avoid them.”

    
    

39. “I did not succeed in life because of my intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.”

    
    

40. “Do not live your life in such a fashion that a bad day can kill you.”

    
    

41. “Benjamin Franklin said a very wise thing. He said you keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut thereafter.”

    
    

42. “You climb as hard as you can, by just advancing one inch at a time. That's the secret of life.”

    
    

43. “What good is envy? It's the one sin you can't have any fun at.”

    
    

44. Charlie Munger: "People don't seem to care what floor they're at, just whether the elevator is going up or down."

    Warren Buffett: "That's true. People feel better when they're on the 2nd floor that just came up from 1st than they do when they're on the 99th floor coming down from 100th."

    — Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting, 1995

Benjamin Graham

45. “Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble… to give way to hope, fear and greed.”

46. “The chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions.”

Sir John Templeton

47. “The four most costly words in investment are "this time it's different."”

Anthony Bolton

48. “Buying a highly geared business is not dissimilar to buying an ungeared business on margin.”

Bruce Lee

49. “The Three Stages of Cultivation — The first is the primitive stage. It is a stage of original ignorance in which a person knows nothing about the art of combat. In a fight, he simply blocks and strikes instinctively without a concern for what is right and wrong. Of course, he may not be so-called scientific, but, nevertheless, being himself, his attacks or defenses are fluid.

    
    

    The second stage — the stage of sophistication, or mechanical stage — begins when a person starts his training. He is taught the different ways of blocking, striking, kicking, standing, breathing, and thinking — unquestionably, he has gained the scientific knowledge of combat, but unfortunately his original self and sense of freedom are lost, and his action no longer flows by itself. His mind tends to freeze at different movements for calculations and analysis, and even worse, he might be called "intellectually bound" and maintain himself outside of the actual reality.

    
    

    The third stage — the stage of artlessness, or spontaneous stage — occurs when, after years of serious and hard practice, the student realizes that after all, gung fu is nothing special. And instead of trying to impose on his mind, he adjusts himself to his opponent like water pressing on an earthen wall. It flows through the slightest crack. There is nothing to try to do but try to be purposeless and formless, like water. All of his classical techniques and standard styles are minimized, if not wiped out, and nothingness prevails. He is no longer confined.”

50. “You must have complete determination. The worst opponent you can come across is one whose aim has become an obsession. For instance, if a man has decided that he is going to bite off your nose no matter what happens to him in the process, the chances are he will succeed in doing it. He may be severely beaten up, too, but that will not stop him from carrying out his objective. That is the real fighter.”

    
    

51. “Willing is not enough; we must do. Knowing is not enough; we must apply.”

Muhammad Ali

52. “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses — behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”

Lance Armstrong

53. “Being a champion is redefining what's humanly possible.”

Vince Lombardi

54. “Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”

    
    

55. “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.”

    
    

56. “Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing.”

Tiger Woods

57. “Problem is, there are no rainy days.”

    — For American Express

Bill Gates

58. “My job is to get a fair share of the software applications market. And to me that's 100%.”

    — 1991, as Microsoft Office was being launched

Larry Ellison

59. “I remember when Steve was my neighbour in Woodside, California, and he had no furniture in his house. It then struck me that there wasn't a furniture good enough for Steve in the world. That's the difference between me and Steve. I'm willing to live with the best the world can provide.”

    — Co-Founder and CEO of Oracle, on Steve Jobs

Theodore Roosevelt

60. “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”

Benjamin Franklin

61. “The best way to see Faith is to shut the eye of Reason.”

Richard Branson

62. During an interview, Richard Branson was once asked for advice on how to become a millionaire. He said, “Start with a billion dollars. Then buy an airline.”

Aristotle Onassis

63. “After a certain point money is meaningless. It ceases to be the goal — the game is what counts.”

    — Shipping magnate (1906–1975); left Greece for Argentina at 17 with just $63, and had made his first million within two years

Bayazid Bastami

64. “When I was young, I was a revolutionary. My only prayer to god was — Lord, give me the strength to change the world. As I grew into middle age, I realized that I had not changed the world. I then changed my prayer to — Lord, give me the strength to change my family and close friends, that will be enough. Now that I am old and withered, I realize that even that had not come to pass. I have now changed my prayer to — Lord, give me the strength to change myself. If this had been my prayer from the beginning, I would not have wasted so much time.”

    — Sufi Master

Zhuge Liang

65. “An enlightened ruler does not worry about people not knowing him; he worries about not knowing people.”

    
    

66. “Good generals select intelligent officers, thoughtful advisors, and brave subordinates. They oversee their troops like a fierce tiger with wings.”

    
    

67.  “Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered; those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win.”

    
    

68. “To overcome the intelligent by folly is contrary to the natural order of things; to overcome the foolish by intelligence is in accord with the natural order. To overcome the intelligent by intelligence, however, is a matter of opportunity.”

    
    

69. “Nothing is harder to see into than people's nature. The sage looks at subtle phenomena and listens to small voices. This harmonizes the outside with the inside and the inside with the outside.”

Dalai Lama

70. “Love is the absence of judgment.”

    
    

71. “Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.”

    
    

72. “Silence is sometimes the best answer.”

    
    

73. “If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”

    
    

74. “People take different roads seeking fulfilment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.”

    
    

75. “If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience and understanding.”

    
    

76. “I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives. I'm not talking about the short-term gratification of pleasures like sex, drugs or gambling (though I'm not knocking them), but something that will bring true and lasting happiness. The kind that sticks.”

    
    

77. “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

    
    

78. “All suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their own happiness or satisfaction.”

    
    

79. “A truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if they behave negatively or hurt you.”

    
    

80. “The way to change others' minds is with affection, and not anger.”

    
    

81. “Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility… without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed, or unhappy because of circumstances.”

Naval Ravikant

82. “My old definition was "freedom to." Freedom to do anything I want. Freedom to do whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like. Now, the freedom I'm looking for is internal freedom. It's "freedom from." Freedom from reaction. Freedom from feeling angry. Freedom from being sad. Freedom from being forced to do things. I'm looking for "freedom from," internally and externally, whereas before I was looking for "freedom to."”

Fyodor Dostoevsky

83. “We judge others by their worst moments; ourselves by our best intentions.”

Sam Altman

84. “A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time. Most people don’t even try and just accept that things are the way that they are. People have an enormous capacity to make things happen. A combination of self-doubt, giving up too early and not pushing hard enough prevents most people from ever reaching anywhere near their potential.”

    — From Sam Altman’s blog post “How to Be Successful” (2019)

    
    

Masayoshi Son

85. “When your dream is big, you are always humble. You are always hungry. You always wake up in the middle of the night and thinking about the solutions. So that’s where I am now, still working with passion.”

    — Masayoshi Son in May 2026, when Forbes stated his net worth at $80 billion

Scripture

86. “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”

    — Acts 20:35

    
    

87. “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

    — Matthew 6:1–4

    
    

88. “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

    This, then, is how you should pray:

    
    

    "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."

    
    

    For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

    — Matthew 6:5–15

    
    

89. “The Wise and Foolish Builders — "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.”

    — Matthew 7:24–29

    
    

90. “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.”

    — 2 Corinthians 9:11

    
    

91. “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. (You can accept, but you don't have to agree.)”

    — Romans 15:7

    
    

    Others

92. “Greed is the downfall of many a great man. There is only a fine line between greed and what is calculated risk. It is the ability to differentiate the two that makes a man everlastingly successful.”

    — Anonymous

    
    

93. “It's very easy to make decisions with other people's money.”

    — Lee Eng Huat, at dinner with David at Sofeco Café in Bingzhou

    
    

94. “You know what's the difference between having $3 billion and $30 billion? There is absolutely no difference to your lifestyle. You eat the same food, live in the same house, drive the same car, fly the same plane. But the difference is POWER. It means that you no longer have to suck up to people, people have to suck up to you. It means that if you are Anthony Salim and you call someone to the office at 11pm at night, they will come.”

    — KKH at Lei Garden, 2022

    
    

95. “Now that! is information.”

    — RBH, as he turned over to speak to V