Philanthropist and well-renowned businessman Warren Buffett has been a staple in the entrepreneurial community for decades. A big dreamer since a young age, Buffett had always known that he would be wealthy. “I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.” A novel statement, but one that he held close to his heart to obtain and see through. Buffett is now one of the most successful and richest people in the world, due to his belief in himself and never giving up on advantageous goals.
Early Life and Education
Born in Nebraska, Buffett’s father was elected to the United States Congress, and moved his family to Washington, D.C. for the remainder of Buffett’s education prior to college. Even at a young age, Buffett displayed entrepreneurial endeavors, such as running a newspaper route and selling horse racing tip sheets. While Buffett wanted to forego college to pursue his business aspirations, his father thought otherwise and pushed him to further his education.
Buffett graduated from the University of Nebraska at the age of 19 with a degree in Business Administration. Upon graduation, he applied to Harvard Business school, but was rejected for being too young to attend. Not to be deterred, Buffett applied to Columbia University, an experience that would forever alter his life. While attending his studies there, Buffett met his mentor, Ben Graham and another famed investor, David Dodd.
Growing his Empire
Buffett learned of Graham’s philosophy of intelligent investing, and grew to apply his own take on it, and adapt it to his future successes. He first began as an investment salesman, a job he liked and one that helped him evolve. During this time, Buffett realized that he didn’t like seeing his clients lose money, so he created a partnership with close friends and family to ensure that didn’t happen. Over that timeframe, Buffett ended up opening seven total partnerships, with almost an 10% stake in each one. In only three more years, he merged those companies together and became a millionaire by the age of 30.
Buffett is best known for taking the undervalued textile company, Berkshire Hathaway, and placing stock in it, something he learned from his mentor’s philosophy of value investing. He phased out its textile manufacturing division, instead expanding the company by buying assets in media (The Washington Post), insurance (GEICO) and oil (Exxon).” Over time, Buffett’s investments in undervalued companies help make him one of the richest men in our era. As of 2018, his net worth was estimated to be around $84 billion.
Buffett is also known for his charity and philanthropic endeavors and has given away close to $28 billion to support them. Some of these charities that he has donated to include homelessness, creative arts, poverty, health, and human rights just to name a few. That is why we felt it important and imperative to highlight 24 of the best and most influential quotes from Buffett himself. From life, to business, to child rearing, these quotes are sure to keep you motivated and uplifted at a time where we need it the most.
- “Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble.”
- “The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.”
- “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
- “I just sit in my office and read all day”
- “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business.”
- “The most important investment you can make is in yourself.”
- “One can best prepare themselves for the economic future by investing in your own education. If you study hard and learn at a young age, you will be in the best circumstances to secure your future.”
- “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
- “Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.”
- “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”
- “Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.”
- “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.”
- “If you’re in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%.”
- “I’ll give my children ‘enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.’”
- ‘The light can at any time go from green to red without pausing at yellow.”
- “You cannot make a good deal with a bad person.”
- “Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.”
- “If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.”
- “Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.”
- “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
- “Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.”
- “Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”
- “The important thing is to know what you know and know what you don’t know.”
- “You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out.”
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