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If you have competence, you know the edge. It wouldnt be a competence if you didnt know where the boundaries lie. Asking whether youve passed the boundary is a question that almost answers itself.

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
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Boundary
Almost
Competence
Lying
Edge
Whether
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More quotes by Charlie Munger

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Sears had layers and layers of people it didn't need. It was very bureaucratic. It was slow to think. And there was an established way of thinking. If you poked your head up with a new thought, the system kind of turned against you. It was everything in the way of a dysfunctional big bureaucracy that you would expect.
Charlie Munger
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Practically everybody (1) overweighs the stuff that can be numbered, because it yields to the statistical techniques they’re taught in academia, and (2) doesn’t mix in the hard-to-measure stuff that may be more important. That is a mistake I’ve tried all my life to avoid, and I have no regrets for having done that.
Charlie Munger
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You're not going to get very far in life based on what you already know. You're going to advance in life by what you're going to learn after you leave here.
Charlie Munger
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It's natural that you'd have more brains going into money management. There are so many huge incomes in money management and investment banking - it's like ants to sugar. There are huge incentives for a man to take up money management as opposed to, say, physics, and it's a lot easier.
Charlie Munger
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It's not a competency if you don't know the edge of it.
Charlie Munger
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The laws of thermodynamic s are such that if the water is getting warmer - and I believe it is - the energy of the weather is going to go up.
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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Those of us who have been very fortunate have a duty to give back. Whether one gives a lot as one goes along as I do or a little and then a lot [when one dies] as Warrendoes is a matter of personal preference. I would hate to have people ask me for money all day long.
Charlie Munger
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How could economics not be behavioral? If it isn't behavioral, what the hell is it?
Charlie Munger
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In engineering, people have a big margin of safety. But in the financial world, people don't give a damn about safety. They let it balloon and balloon and balloon. It's aided by false accounting.
Charlie Munger
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The investment game is getting more and more competitive.
Charlie Munger
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When you borrow a man's car, always return it with a tank of gas.
Charlie Munger
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We bought a doomed textile mill [Berkshire Hathaway] and a California S&L [Savings & Loan Wesco] just before a calamity. Both were bought at a discount to liquidation value.
Charlie Munger
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Clever derivatives broke dozens of companies. It killed them. Bankrupt. We don't need these kinds of innovation in finance. It's OK to be boring in finance. What we want is innovation in widgets.
Charlie Munger
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[Lawyers who file class-action securities suits] is not a group you would want to marry into your family. That said, more than half the time the people being sued by the Lerach firm are guilty of outrageous conduct. The problem is, they don't mind (suing) the other half. They are an equal opportunity litigator.
Charlie Munger
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We’re partial to putting out large amounts of money where we won’t have to make another decision.
Charlie Munger
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Every business tries to turn this year's success into next year's greater success. It's hard for me to see why Microsoft is sinful to do this. If it's a sin, then I hope all of Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiaries are sinners. Someone whose salary is paid by U.S.taxpayers is happy to dramatically weaken the one place where we're winning big?!
Charlie Munger
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Avoid working directly under somebody you don't admire and don't want to be like.
Charlie Munger
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Derivative trading with mark-to-market accounting degenerates into mark-to-model. Two firms make a big derivative trade and the accountants on both sides show a large profit from the same trade.
Charlie Munger
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There is the sheer amount of Franklin's wisdom. And the talent. Franklin played four instruments. He was the nation's leading scientist and inventor, plus a leading author, statesman, and philanthropist. There has never been anyone like him.
Charlie Munger