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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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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
Chance
Slim
History
Agreeable
Business
Surviving
Shows
Chances
Best
Owners
Long
Manner
Company
Term

More quotes by Charlie Munger

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A lot of opportunities in life tend to last a short while, due to some temporary inefficiency... For each of us, really good investment opportunities aren't going to come along too often and won't last too long, so you've got to be ready to act and have a prepared mind.
Charlie Munger
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Acknowledging what you don't know is the dawning of wisdom.
Charlie Munger
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You must have the confidence to override people with more credentials than you whose cognition is impaired by incentive-caused bias or some similar psychological force that is obviously present. But there are also cases where you have to recognize that you have no wisdom to add - and that your best course is to trust some expert.
Charlie Munger
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The name of the game is continuing to learn. Even if you're very well trained and have some natural aptitude, you still need to keep learning.
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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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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We only want what success we can get despite encouraging others to share our general view about reality.
Charlie Munger
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Over many decades, our usual practice is that if something we like goes down, we buy more and more. Sometimes something happens, you realize you’re wrong, and you get out. But if you develop correct confidence in your judgment, buy more and take advantage of stock prices.
Charlie Munger
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The investment game always involves considering both quality and price, and the trick is to get more quality than you pay for in price. It's just that simple.
Charlie Munger
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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.
Charlie Munger
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While no real money came down, my family gave me a good education and a marvelous example of how people should behave, and in the end that was more valuable than money. Being surrounded by the right values from the beginning is an immense treasure. Warrenhad that. It even has a financial advantage.
Charlie Munger
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Is there such thing as a cheerful pessimist? That's what I am.
Charlie Munger
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It's human nature to extrapolate the recent past into the future, but it's terrible that managements go along with this.
Charlie Munger
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Warren spends 70 hours a week thinking about investing .
Charlie Munger
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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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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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If mutual fund directors are independent, then I'm the lead character in the Bolshoi Ballet.
Charlie Munger
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Bernie Ebbers and Ken Lay were caricatures - they were easy to spot. They were almost psychopaths. But it's much harder to spot problems at companies like Royal Dutch [Shell].
Charlie Munger
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You'll find many markets where bottlers of Pepsi and Coke both make a lot of money and many others where they destroy most of the profitability of the two franchises. That must get down to the peculiarities of individual adjustment to market capitalism. I think you 'd have to know the people involved to fully understand what was happening.
Charlie Munger
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Litigation is notoriously time-consuming, inefficient, costly and unpredictable.
Charlie Munger