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I think track records are very important. If you start early trying to have a perfect one in some simple thing like honesty, you're well on your way to success in this world.

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
Important
Early
Thing
Records
Trying
Start
Way
Simple
Think
Perfect
Thinking
Success
Like
Wells
Honesty
World
Well
Track

More quotes by Charlie Munger

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It's a finite and very competitive world. All large aggregations of capital eventually find it hell on earth to grow and thus find a lower rate of return.
Charlie Munger
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Tthe first rule is that you can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang 'em back. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form.... You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life.
Charlie Munger
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Assume life will be really tough, and then ask if you can handle it. If the answer is yes, you've won.
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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I think you'll make more money in the end with good ethics than bad. Even though there are some people who do very well, like Marc Rich-who plainly has never had any decent ethics, or seldom anyway. But in the end, Warren Buffett has done better than Marc Rich-in money-not just in reputation.
Charlie Munger
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For years I have read the morning paper and harrumphed. There's a lot to harrumph about now.
Charlie Munger
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Over the very long term, history shows that the chances of any business surviving in a manner agreeable to a company's owners are slim at best.
Charlie Munger
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You don't want to be like the motion picture exec who had so many people at his funeral, but they were there just make sure he was dead. Or how about the guy who, at his funeral, the priest said, Won't anyone stand up and say anything nice for the deceased? and finally someone said, Well, his brother was worse.
Charlie Munger
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The general systems of money management [today] require people to pretend to do something they can't do and like something they don't. It's a terrible way to spend your life, but it's very well paid.
Charlie Munger
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Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up.
Charlie Munger
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So, economics should emulate physics' basic ethos, but its search for precision in physics-like formulas is almost always wrong in economics.
Charlie Munger
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Understanding how to be a good investor makes you a better business manager and vice versa.
Charlie Munger
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A lot of success in life and business comes from knowing what you want to avoid: early death, a bad marriage, etc.
Charlie Munger
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Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs.
Charlie Munger
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Here's one truth that perhaps your typical investment counselor would disagree with: if you're comfortably rich and someone else is getting richer faster than you by, for example, investing in risky stocks, so what?! Someone will always be getting richer faster than you. This is not a tragedy.
Charlie Munger
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The liabilities are always 100 percent good. It's the assets you have to worry about.
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
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Being short and seeing a promoter take the stock up is very irritating. It's not worth it to have that much irritation in your life.
Charlie Munger
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We may well have a competitive advantage buying decent businesses at decent prices. But they won't be fabulous businesses and fabulous prices. There's too much competition and money out there, with many buyout specialists.
Charlie Munger
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The ethos of not fooling yourself is one of the best you could possibly have. It's powerful because it's so rare.
Charlie Munger