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Bull markets go to people's heads. If you're a duck on a pond, and it's rising due to a downpour, you start going up in the world. But you think it's you, not the pond.

Charlie Munger

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Charlie Munger
Age: 100
Born: 1924
Born: January 1
Business Person
Financier
Investor
Lawyer
Omaha
Nebraska
Charlie Thomas Munger
Charles T. Munger
Charles Thomas Munger
Rising
Ponds
Start
Bull
Going
Duck
Think
Bulls
Thinking
Ducks
World
Markets
People
Heads
Downpour
Dues
Pond

More quotes by Charlie Munger

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The safest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want.
Charlie Munger
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Three rules for a career: 1) Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself 2) Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire and 3) Work only with people you enjoy.
Charlie Munger
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I have a name for people who went to the extreme efficient market theory-which is bonkers. It was an intellectually consistent theory that enabled them to do pretty mathematics. So I understand its seductiveness to people with large mathematical gifts. It just had a difficulty in that the fundamental assumption did not tie properly to reality.
Charlie Munger
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You've got to have models in your head and you've got to array you experience - both vicarious and direct - onto this latticework of mental models.
Charlie Munger
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For many of our shareholders, our stock is all they own, and we're acutely aware of that. Our culture [of conservatism] runs pretty deep.
Charlie Munger
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I think the main figure that matters to all of us, including people in the media, is: How does GDP per capita grow? And those figures have been very good. There is a huge flux both up and down, so it isn't like we're all static in status. What's important is that pie grows.
Charlie Munger
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Proper accounting is like engineering. You need a margin of safety. Thank God we don't design bridges and airplanes the way we do accounting.
Charlie Munger
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A banker who is allowed to borrow money at X and loan it out at X plus Y will just go crazy and do too much of it if the civilization doesn't have rules that prevent it.
Charlie Munger
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Let me know what your problem is, and I will try to make it more difficult for you.
Charlie Munger
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If the technology hadn't changed, they [newspapers] would still be great businesses. Network TV [in its heyday], anyone could run and do well. If Tom Murphy as running it, you'd do very well, but even your idiot nephew could do well. Fortunately, carbide cutting tools [such as those made by Iscar] don't have these types of substitutes.
Charlie Munger
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Warren spends 70 hours a week thinking about investing .
Charlie Munger
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Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.
Charlie Munger
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Quoting Demosthenes, 'For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.' I would rather make money playing a piano in a whorehouse than arguing that no cost is incurred when employees are paid in stock options instead of cash. I am not kidding.
Charlie Munger
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It's been my experience in life if you just keep thinking and reading, you don't have to work.
Charlie Munger
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Well in the history of the See's Candy Company they always say, I never did it before, and I'm never going to do it again. And we cashier them. It would be evil not to, because terrible behavior spreads.
Charlie Munger
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A rough rule in life is that an organization foolish in one way in dealing with a complex system is all too likely to be foolish in another.
Charlie Munger
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Ben Franklin and Samuel Johnson, he credits their wisdom for his success. They were both utterly brilliant men. And powerful communicators. Both have helped me all the way through life. Their lessons are easy to assimilate.
Charlie Munger
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You must know the big ideas in the big disciplines, and use them routinely - all of them, not just a few. Most people are trained in one model - economics, for example - and try to solve all problems in one way. You know the old saying: to the man with a hammer, the world looks like a nail. This is a dumb way of handling problems.
Charlie Munger
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To atone, I teach and try to set an example... I love spreading this stuff around. Just because it's trite doesn't mean it isn't right. In fact, I like to say, 'If it's trite, it's right.'
Charlie Munger
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It would be easier to screw up American Express than Coke or Gillette, but it's an immensely strong business.
Charlie Munger