Downturn is an opportunity

A market downturn, doesn't bother us. For us and our long term investors, it is an opportunity to increase our ownership of great companies with great management at good prices. Only for short term investors and market timers is a correction not an opportunity.

- Warren Buffett

Independence of solitude in the midst of crowd

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Believe nothing unless it agrees with your own reason

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

- Gautama Buddha

Buy it today, if it is attractive

If I find something that is attractive today, I am going to buy it today. I am not going to wait and hope that it sells cheaper 6 months from now. Because who knows when stocks will hit a low or a high? Nobody knows that. All you know is whether you're getting enough for your money or not.

- Warren Buffett

Investor's misery index

The inflation rate plus the percentage of capital that must be paid by the owner to transfer into his own pocket the annual earnings achieved by the business (i.e., ordinary income tax on dividends and capital gains tax on retained earnings) - can be thought of as an "investor's misery index". When this index exceeds the rate of return earned on equity by the business, the investor's purchasing power (real capital) shrinks even though he consumes nothing at all. We have no corporate solution to this problem; high inflation rates will not help us earn higher rates of return on equity.

- Warren Buffett

The key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them.

- Peter Lynch

Derivatives business

Upon leaving the derivatives business, our feelings about the business mirrored a line in a country song: "I liked you better before I got to know you so well."

- Warren Buffett