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I have a black belt in chutzpah. I was born with it. Some people, like some of the women I know, have a black belt in spending. They were born with that. But what they gave me was a black belt in chutzpah.

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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Chutzpah

More quotes by Charlie Munger

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Berkshire has the lowest turnover of any major company in the U.S.The Walton family owns more of Wal-Mart than Buffett owns of Berkshire, so it isn't because of large holdings. It's because we have a really unusual shareholder body that thinks of itself as owners and not holders of little pieces of paper.
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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Just avoid things like racing trains to the crossing, doing cocaine, etc. Develop good mental habits.
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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I think there's an awful lot of twaddle and bullshit on EVA. The whole game is to turn retained earnings into more earnings. EVA has ideas about cost of capital that make no sense. Of course, if a company generates high returns on capital and can maintain this over time, it will do well. But the mental system as a whole does not work.
Charlie Munger
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If people tell you what you really don't want to hear what's unpleasant-there's an almost automatic reaction of antipathy. You have to train yourself out of it.
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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In my life there are not that many questions I can't properly deal with using my $40 adding machine and dog-eared compound interest table.
Charlie Munger
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And your brain doesn't naturally know how to think the way Zeckhauser knows how to play bridge. for example, people do not react symmetrically to loss and gain. Well maybe a great bridge player like Zeckhauser does, but that's a trained response. Ordinary people, subconsciously affected by their inborn tendencies.
Charlie Munger
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One of the first big bubbles, of course, was the huge and horrible South Sea Bubble in England. And the aftermath was interesting. Many of you probably don't remember what happened after the South Sea Bubble, which caused an enormous financial contraction, and a lot of pain. They banned publicly traded stock in England for decades.
Charlie Munger
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It's hard to predict what will happen with two brands in a market. Sometimes they will behave in a gentlemanly way, and sometimes they'll pound each other. I know of no way to predict whether they'll compete moderately or to the death. If you could figure it out, you could make a lot of money.
Charlie Munger
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It's not the bad ideas that do you in, but the good ones.
Charlie Munger
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Hard work, honesty, if you keep at it, will get you almost anything.
Charlie Munger
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Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.
Charlie Munger
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If you get into the mental habit of relating what you're reading to the basic structure of the underlying ideas being demonstrated, you gradually accumulate some wisdom.
Charlie Munger
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Just keep your head down and do your best.
Charlie Munger
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The SEC does way more good than harm - the last thing I would do is get rid of the SEC...if accounting were thoroughly fixed, a lot of other sins would go away. We're paying a huge price for deterioration of accounting.
Charlie Munger
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The first chance you have to avoid a loss from a foolish loan is by refusing to make it there is no second chance.
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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Accounting is a big subject and there are huge forces in play. The entire momentum of existing thinking and existing custom is in a direction that allows terrible follies to happen, and the terrible follies have terrible consequences.
Charlie Munger