Warren Buffett Quotes on Life, Success
Famous Warren Buffett Quotes
Buffett’s Two Rules of Investing…
For us Rulers, the first, and I might be biased here, but also the best Warren Buffett quote is no surprise to us.
1. "Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No.1"
New Insight: In Buffett's 2025 annual letter he remarked, "In an unpredictable market, adhering to these rules is more crucial than ever—patience and discipline protect your capital."
But, it is possible for the stock market to price things wrong! You can find wonderful businesses on sale often.
As Buffett says,
2. "Remember that the stock market is a manic depressive."
💡New Insight: In a recent CNBC interview, he also said "When valuations swing wildly, always focus on the underlying quality—opportunities abound in the chaos."
For any consumer of daily financial news, this will ring true. Equity markets swing wildly from day to day on the smallest of news, rally, and crash on sentiment, and celebrate or vilify the most inane data points. It's important not to get caught up in the madness. Instead, stick to your homework.
Always stay rational.
So what is the Warren Buffett Rule?
Never lose money. Stay rational and stick to your homework when researching businesses in which to invest.
...But If You Do Happen to Lose
Every investor goes through losses at some point, but you have to know how to handle them.
3. "Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks."
In other words:
4. "The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging."
💡New Insight: In Buffett's 2025 annual letter he said, "Recognize your missteps early—then pivot decisively. Every loss is a lesson if you learn from it."
Investments can go bad, and when they do, it's best to bow out and stop throwing money at them. It is a difficult decision to make, but accepting the loss will prove to be more beneficial financially.
The Market Can Price Things Wrong
5. "Price is what you pay. Value is what you get."
Don't focus on short-term swings in price. Focus on the underlying value of your investment.
6. "Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns."
This is sage advice from a man who has made a fortune on companies like Apple, American Express, General Motors, UPS, Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, and Walmart.
7. "For the investor, a too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favorable business developments."
If you pay too much for a company, your investments might take a hit later on.
High Returns with Low Risk is the Key
8. "Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.
New Insight: "Even in volatile times, clarity about what you truly understand remains your best hedge against unnecessary risk," he noted in his latest annual letter.
The advice here is obvious but often forgotten, particularly after investors have had some success. The temptation to believe that success in one area you know well allows you to easily analyze another is much greater once you’ve had some good returns, but should be resisted.
Warren Buffett himself has kept out of the technology sector for the most part, given his lack of knowledge of the sector. Buffett said it best:
9. "Never invest in a business you cannot understand."
Warren Buffett has always held strong to the belief that index funds are one of the best ways to grow wealth. They are inexpensive and are not closely linked to how well one entity is predicted to fare.
Plus, individual stocks cost more so advisors will keep a larger percentage of earnings. Buffett says:
10. "If returns are going to be 7 or 8 percent and you're paying 1 percent for fees, that makes an enormous difference in how much money you're going to have in retirement."
Since cost matters, a passive form of investing could be the best path to take to build wealth.
It's Easier to Look Back Than to Look Into the Future
11. “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield."
💡New Insight: "But always remember, a disciplined investor uses the past as a guide—not as a blueprint for the future," Buffett recently emphasized.
The past is simple and straightforward. Whereas, the future can be murky because it is clouded by the perceptions of many.
Consider the Four M's Before Investing
When I talk about the four M's of investing, I'm referring to meaning, moat, management, and margin of safety.
Finding the right investment for you always begins with meaning, and sometimes, this can take time. Becoming an expert on a potential investment option is always more powerful to do before jumping in. Allowing ample time to learn the ins and outs of any company before investing never fails.
12. "Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre."
Next is a company's moat. Learning how to invest with this kind of durable advantage can increase your odds of investment success.
13. "The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage."
Then you'll look at the management to assess whether or not the company has a plan for continued growth and is run by good leaders.
And lastly, the margin of safety is the part of Buffett's investment strategy that stresses the idea of buying investments at a high price while searching for opportunities to pay less for something with higher value.
Warren Buffett quotes on the margin of safety state:
14. "The three most important words in investing are margin of safety."
15. "
Warren Buffett's Motto
16. "It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price, than a fair company at a wonderful price."
This famous Warren Buffett quote is very interesting, as "value investors" frequently pass on anything they cannot get for a deeply discounted price. It was one of Buffett's early lessons as a value investor, famously defined by his turn away from "cigar-butt investing.”
17. "If a business does well, the stock eventually follows."
18. "For the investor, a too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favorable business developments."
💡New Insight: "A fair price today is the cornerstone of spectacular wealth tomorrow," Buffett recently reiterated.
Invest for the Long Term
19. "Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years."
When it comes to successful investing, timing is everything. According to Buffet, the mindset that the market may not open back up immediately should guide each and every single one of your investment decisions. Here's why:
20. "All there is to investing is picking good stocks at good times and staying with them as long as they remain good companies."
21. "I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years."
22. "It is a terrible mistake for investors with long-term horizons -- among them pension funds, college endowments, and savings-minded individuals -- to measure their investment' risk' by their portfolio's ratio of bonds to stocks."
23. “Successful investing takes time, discipline, and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can't" produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
💡New Insight: "Investing is about letting your capital work quietly over decades—never underestimate the power of time."
Patience is Key
And impatience can kill your money. Buffett says:
24. "Calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic."
25. "The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient."
💡New Insight: "Patience in investing is like planting seeds—you must nurture them over time for a bountiful harvest," Buffett noted in his recent annual letter.
If both of these quotes hold true, why not wait? You’ve got nothing to lose—and that's our goal, right?
Think Long-Term Over Short
26. "If you aren't thinking about owning a stock for 10 years, don't even think about owning it for 10 minutes."
Investing is not trading and has a vastly different goal. When done well, trading is about taking measured investment risks for discrete periods of time at sufficient volume to generate profits, and typically involves wild swings in profitability. Investing is about minimizing risk to generate wealth over the long term, not generating short-term profits.
If Warren Buffett had to choose how long to own a company for, this quote sums it up:
27. “Our favorite holding period is forever."
💡New Insight: "Your time horizon is your greatest asset—commit for the long haul, and the market will reward you," Buffett advised recently.
Another great Buffett quote in this vein is:
28. “An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it."
This quote is basically saying you should never buy businesses with the intention of selling them. If you could only buy 10 or 20 stocks in your entire life, you'd probably be a lot more careful with your investments. You’d spend more time researching a company to ensure you really love it before committing.
And, though we've touched on this before, keep in mind that time is on your side.
29. "Do not take yearly results too seriously. Instead, focus on four or five-year averages.”
💡New Insight: "In the end, it's not the daily fluctuations that matter, but the compounded growth over decades," he reminded in his 2025 letter.
Yearly averages will not give you much insight into the success of an investment. Instead, comparing data across a number of years will provide you with a much bigger picture that you can use to make necessary adjustments and continue moving forward.
Related: 30 Stock Market Quotes by Successful Investors
Only Invest In Wonderful Companies
Just as time is your friend, it is also the friend of any great company. Because with time, any wonderful company begins to age like fine wine:
30. “Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.”
💡New Insight: "Great businesses build their legacy over time; invest in them, and you'll never be disappointed," Buffett recently shared.
Invest In Companies That Match Your Values
31. "Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, 'Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.'"
💡New Insight: "Investing in companies that resonate with your values not only builds wealth—it builds a better world," Buffett observed.
Again, being choosy is not necessarily bad. Think back to your punch card. If you can only use 10 punches for the rest of your investing career, you'd think twice before making a decision. Do some research on companies that follow similar belief systems to your own, operate effectively, and have growth plans that closely match your own.
People Make Investing Seem More Difficult Than it Should
32. "The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective."
In my opinion, this is one of the best Warren Buffett quotes of all time. Many of his investing strategies focus on simplifying the process to make sound decisions.
For example, he is a fan of using the Rule of 72, which lets you determine how long it takes for an investment to double without using a calculator.
33. "There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult."
New Insight: "Keep your investing strategy simple—complexity is often the enemy of clarity," he remarked in a recent interview.
Buffett has pointed out that you don't have to be a genius to be a good investor. Instead, being a good investor relies on hard work and due diligence.
There are some basic investing rules that you need to learn, but if you follow those rules, chances are you'll be successful. Remember to use any of my investing calculators when the math gets tough!
Investing is More Than an IQ
As I said, Buffett believes you don’t need to be incredibly intelligent to be a good investor. In his eyes, temperament, not intellect, is the only trait we need to fine-tune in order to lock in big wins.
34. "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."
35. "Success in investing doesn't correlate with IQ ... what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing."
36. "The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don't have to swing at everything -- you can wait for your pitch."
37. "You don't need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ."
38. "What counts for most people in investing vs saving is not how much they know, but rather how realistically they define what they don't know."
39. "There is nothing wrong with a 'know nothing' investor who realizes it. The problem is when you are a 'know nothing' investor but you think you know something."
💡New Insight: "Investing is more about emotional discipline than raw smarts—always keep your ego in check," Buffett has noted this year.
Make Your Own Forecasts
Sometimes using your own intuition to make predictions can tell you a lot about your investment strategy, in comparison to the strategies of those around you.
40. "Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future."
💡New Insight: "The true value lies in understanding a business—not in trying to predict every market turn," he advised recently.
Invest Only in Companies You Understand
Do your research to recognize what makes certain companies tick before you put money toward advancing their interests. In other words:
41. "Buy a stock the way you would buy a house. Understand and like it such that you'd be content to own it in the absence of any market."
42. "It's better to have a partial interest in the Hope diamond than to own all of a rhinestone."
This means that to be a good investor, you need only possess a certain amount of knowledge in your own areas of expertise. This concept is widely known as your circle of competence and is explained by the Buffett quote below:
43. "You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital."
💡New Insight: "Stick to what you know; expanding your circle slowly ensures you never stray into risky territory," Buffett recently emphasized.
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