Look for integrity, intelligence and energy.
— Warren BuffettRules for success
Use itGS4: integrity is the non-negotiable among qualities sought in a person.
Quotes / Thinkers / Warren Buffett
Thinker · 18 quotes
Warren Buffett quotes for UPSC
18 sourced quotes by Warren Buffett on economy, development & poverty, integrity & honesty, governance & administration, courage, leadership, with a use case for each in GS4, Essay and interviews.
✓ Attributions checked against Wikiquote's sourced list
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
— Warren BuffettAs quoted in Corporate Survival: The Critical Importance of Sustainability Risk Management (2005) by Dan Robert Anderson, p. 138
Use itGS4: reputation takes decades to build and minutes to ruin; act accordingly.
People will always try to stop you doing the right thing if it is unconventional.
— Warren BuffettAs quoted in "My $650,100 Lunch with Warren Buffett" by Guy Spier, in TIME (30 June 2008)
Use itGS4: doing right often meets resistance when unconventional.
Criticize by category — praise by name.
— Warren Buffett(quote at 48:00 of 2:00:00)
Use itGS4/Interview: leadership tip; criticise systems generally, praise individuals by name.
Size seems to make many organizations slow-thinking, resistant to change and smug.
— Warren Buffett2006 Chairman's Letter
Use itGS2: on bureaucratic inertia; large organisations become slow and resistant to change.
I have been on twenty public company corporate boards, not counting any Berkshire subsidiaries. ... The independent directors, in many cases, are the least independent. ... If the income you receive as a corporate director ... is an important part of your income ... how in the world is that independent?
— Warren Buffett(quote at 5:03:03 of 7:10:07)
Use itGS3/GS4 on corporate governance; financial dependence compromises independent directors.
It's class warfare. My class is winning, but they shouldn't be.
— Warren BuffettInterview with Lou Dobbs on CNN (25 May 2005)
Use itEssay on inequality; even a billionaire admits the rich are winning unfairly.
Can you really explain to a fish what it's like to walk on land? One day on land is worth a thousand years of talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value.
— Warren BuffettAs quoted in The Warren Buffett Way 3rd Edition (2024) by Robert G. Hagstrom, Ch. 6, p. 232
Use itEssay on experiential learning; one day of practice beats years of theory.
Confidence comes back one at a time, but fear, is instantaneous.
— Warren BuffettOther
Use itGS3: market confidence rebuilds slowly but panic spreads instantly.
After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.
— Warren Buffett2001 Chairman's Letter
Use itGS3: crises expose hidden weaknesses in banks and firms; asset quality, NPAs.
The 400 of us pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. 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.
— Warren BuffettSpeaking at a political fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton in New York, as quoted in Henry Goldman, "Buffett, at Clinton Fund-Raiser, Say
Use itGS3: progressive taxation; the privileged owe something to the rest.
There's a whole bunch of things I don't know a thing about — I just stay away from those. So, I stay within what I call my circle of competence.
— Warren BuffettRules for success
Use itInterview: admit limits; operate within your circle of competence.
Over the years, Charlie [Munger, Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman] and I have observed many accounting-based frauds of staggering size. Few of the perpetrators have been punished; many have not even been censured. It has been far safer to steal large sums with pen than small sums with a gun.
— Warren Buffett1988 Chairman's Letter
Use itGS3/GS4 on white-collar crime; accounting frauds rarely punished compared to petty crimes.
Take the job that you would take if you were independently wealthy.
— Warren BuffettRules for success
Use itLife/Interview: choose work by passion, not money; why civil services.
Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
— Warren BuffettStatement of January 1991, as quoted in Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett (2007) by Andrew Kilpatrick
Use itEssay on long-term thinking; today's comfort is from past foresight.
Success in investing doesn't correlate with I.Q. once you're above the level of 125. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.
— Warren BuffettAs quoted in Homespun Wisdom from the "Oracle of Omaha" by Amy Stone in BusinessWeek (5 June 1999)
Use itGS4/Life: temperament and self-control matter more than IQ.
Love is the greatest advantage a parent can give.
— Warren BuffettAs quoted in "Should You Leave It All to the Children?" by Richard I. Kirkland Jr, in Fortune (29 September 1986)
Use itLife/GS1 on family: parental love is a child's greatest advantage.
I like thinking big. I always have. To me it's very simple: if you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.
— Warren BuffettAs quoted in Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist (1995), by Roger Lowenstein, p. 77
Use itLife: when setting goals; if you think anyway, think big.