Quotessence
Home / Authors / Charlie Munger
Charlie Munger

Charlie Munger Quotes

Business person

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleThinkingInvestingWayWantKnowsWorldLongWellsLittlesHardInvestmentIdeasValuesCompanyTryingBigsYearsShould

Famous Charlie Munger Quotes

“I think the reason why we got into such idiocy in investment management is best illustrated by a story that I tell about the guy who sold fishing tackle. I asked him, "My God, they're purple and green. Do fish really take these lures?" And he said, "Mister, I don't sell to fish." Investment managers are in the position of that fishing tackle salesman.”

ThinkingSaidReasonStoriesGuyPositionManagementGreenSellsInvestmentFishesManagersReason WhyFishingPurpleSalesmanLureIdiocyInvestment Management
Author:Charlie Munger
Create image

“We believe there should be a huge area between everything you should do and everything you can do without getting into legal trouble. I don't think you should come anywhere near that line. We don't deserve much credit for this. It helps us make more money. I'd like to believe that we'd behave well even if it didn't work. But more often, we've made extra money from doing the right thing. Ben Franklin said I'm not moral because of it's the right thing to do - but because it's the best policy.”

IfsThinkingShouldBelieveWellsMadeSaidHelpingCan DoLinesMoralTroublePolicyHugeDeserveAreasCreditBehaveThings To DoRight ThingExtrasMore MoneyDoing The Right ThingFranklinBen Franklin
Author:Charlie Munger
Create image

“Mutual funds charge 2% per year and then brokers switch people between funds, costing another 3-4 percentage points. The poor guy in the general public is getting a terrible product from the professionals. I think it's disgusting. It's much better to be part of a system that delivers value to the people who buy the product. But if it makes money, we tend to do it in this country.”

PeopleIfsThinkingYearsCountryGuyValuesPoorProductsTerribleMaking MoneyFundMutualDisgustingPercentagesGeneral PublicBrokersMutual Fund
Author:Charlie Munger
Create image

“I think we have lost our way when people like the [board of] governors and the CEO of the NYSE fail to realize they have a duty to the rest of us to act as exemplars... You do not want your first-grade school teacher to be fornicating on the floor or drinking booze in the classroom; similarly you do not want your stock exchange to be setting the wrong moral example.”

PeopleThinkingWayWantFirstsSchoolLostRealizingMoralTeacherFailingExampleDutyDrinkingAlcoholSettingSettingsBoardsGradesGovernorsCeoClosetsDrinking AlcoholSchool TeachersGrades In SchoolStock Exchange
Author:Charlie Munger
Create image

“Failure to handle psychological denial is a common way for people to go broke: you have made an enormous commitment to something. You have poured effort and money in. And the more you put in, the more that the whole consistency principle makes you think, "Now it has to work. If I put in just a little more, then it will work."”

PeopleThinkingWayMadeWholeCommonEffortPrinciplesCommitmentEnormousHandlePsychologicalBrokeDenialConsistencyMake You Think
Author:Charlie Munger
Create image

“The great lesson in microeconomics is to discriminate between when technology is going to help you and when it's going to kill you. And most people do not get this straight in their heads. But a fellow like Buffett does. For example, when we were in the textile business, which is a terrible commodity business, we were making low-end textiles-which are a real commodity product. And one day, the people came to Warren and said, "They've invented a new loom that we think will do twice as much work as our old ones."”

PeopleThinkingDoeSaidRealEndsHelpingTechnologyExampleProductsTerribleLessonsOne DayLowsFellowsCommodityBuffettTextilesMicroeconomics
Author:Charlie Munger
Create image

“The ethical rule is from Samuel Johnson who believed that maintenance of easily removable ignorance by a responsible office holder was treacherous malfeasance in meeting moral obligation. The prudential rule is that underlying the old Warner & Swasey advertisement for machine tools: "The man who needs a new machine tool, and hasn't bought it, is already paying for it". The Warner & Swasey rule also applies, I believe, to thinking tools. If you don't have the right thinking tools, you, and the people you seek to help, are already suffering from your easily removable ignorance.”

PeopleIfsThinkingMenNeedsBelieveHelpingSufferingI BelieveMoralIgnoranceHe ManOfficeToolsMachinesResponsibleMeetingsObligationEthicalJohnsonMaintenanceAdvertisementsTreacherousMoral ObligationMalfeasance
Author:Charlie Munger
Create image

“A lot of people think if you just had more process and more compliance -- checks and doublechecks and so forth -- you could create a better result in the world. Well, Berkshire has had practically no process. We had hardly any internal auditing until they forced it on us. We just try to operate in a seamless web of deserved trust and be careful whom we trust.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldTryingWellsProcessResultsCarefulChecksInternalsBe CarefulComplianceSeamless
Author:Charlie Munger
Create image

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn't read all the time - none, zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren reads - at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”

PeopleThinkingChildrenBookMatterWholeMotivationalKnownLaughingWiseSubjectsCoupleAreasInvestingLegsWhole LifeMy ChildrenZeroBroadsAmazedSubject MatterWise PeopleSticking Out
Author:Charlie Munger
Create image