- Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
letter to partners, 20 January 1966, in Warren Buffett Speaks (2007)
- Be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful.
letter to shareholders 1986; L. A. Cunningham Essays of Warren Buffett (1998)
- Rule No 1: never lose money. Rule No 2: never forget rule No 1.
in Forbes 400 27 October 1986; Janet C. Lowe Warren Buffett Speaks (1997)
- Investment must be rational; if you can't understand it, don't do it.
usually quoted as ‘Never invest in a business you cannot understand’
in Forbes 400 21 October 1991
- It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked.
at Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, Omaha, 1993; Warren Buffet Speaks (1997)
- Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.
in Omaha World-Herald 2 January 1994; Janet C. Lowe Warren Buffett Speaks (1997)
- A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.
quoted in Fortune Magazine (online edition) 25 June 2006
