Charlie Munger in Damn Right! 9

“It’s….necessary to accommodate a lot of failure, and because no matter how able you are, you’re going to have headwinds and troubles. The Sees who created this business had failed at least once, and had seriously failed. But if person just keeps going on the theory that the life is full of vicissitudes and just does the right thinking and follows the right values it should work out well in the end. So I would say, don’t be discouraged by a few reverses”



“One of Bernard Shaw’s characters explained professional defects as follow: ‘In the last analysis, every profession is a conspiracy against the laity.’”

“To a man with only a hammer, every problem tends to look pretty much like a nail.”

Charlie Munger in Damn Right! 8

“First rate man should be willing to take at least some difficult jobs with a high chance of failure.”



“I’ve been in one aspect or another of investment management for what. 44 years or so, and trying not to disappoint anyone,” said Buffett. “And in the process of not disappointing anyone, one of the key factors is having them have the proper expectations and being knowledgeable about what they’re getting and what they’re not getting. Neither Mr. Munger nor I would function as effectively if we had tens of thousands of people who were in one way or another disappointed with us. That’s not Berkshire.”

Charlie Munger in Damn Right! 7

“You want in a group of people someone who points out that the emperor has no clothes.”


“Smart, hard-working people aren’t exempted from professional disasters of overconfidence. Often, they just go aground in the more difficult voyages they choose, relying on their self-appraisal that they have superior talents and methods.”

Charlie Munger in Damn Right! 6

“Charlie says as you get older you tolerate more and more in your old friends and less and less in your new friends.” – Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett scolded investment bankers for providing whatever advice would bring them the most income: “Don’t ask you barber whether you need a haircut,” he wrote in Berkshire’s 1982 annual report.

Charlie Munger in Damn Right! 5

“The game of investing is one of making better predictions about the future than other people. How are you going to do that? One way is to limit your tries to areas of competence. If you try to predict the future of everything, you attempt too much. You’re going to fail through lack of specialization.”

“We’re willing to forego short-term results for long-term gains.”

Charlie Munger in Damn Right! 4

“We have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. There must be some wisdom in the folk saying, ‘It’s the strong swimmers who drown.’”

“You start with the accounting figures. But that’s only the start. If you try and make judgments just based on accounting figures, you will make one terrible error after another. We’ve got to understand the accounting and the implications of the accounting and understand it thoroughly and also ask a lot of intelligent questions to enable us to judge what is really going on.”

Charlie Munger in Damn Right! 3

“If you mix raisins with turds, they are still turds.”

“Being prepared, on a few occasions in a lifetime, to act promptly in scale, in doing some simple and logical things, will often dramatically improve the financial results of the lifetime. A few major opportunities clearly recognizable as such, will usually come to one who continuously searches and waits, with a curious mind, loving diagnosis involving multiple variables. And then all that required is a willingness to bet heavily when the odds are extremely favorable, using resources available as a result of prudence and patience in the past.”

Charlie Munger in Damn Right! 2

“The best way to avoid envy is to deserve the success you get.”

“The investment game always involves considering both quality and price, and the trick is to get more quality than you pay for the price. It’s just that simple.”

“Never wrestle with a pig because if you do you’ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it.”

Charlie Munger in Damn Right! 1

“To finish first you have to first finish.”

“The rabbit runs faster than the fox, because the rabbit is running for his life while the fox is only running for his dinner.” – Richard Dawkins, “The Selfish Gene”

“You have to learn to be a follower before you become a leader. People should learn to play all roles.”