“It’s waiting that helps you as an investor, and a lot of people just can’t stand to wait. If you didn’t get the deferred-gratification gene, you’ve got to work very hard to overcome that.”

Three rules for a career: 1) Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself; 2) Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire; and 3) Work only with people you enjoy.

It’s stupid the way people extrapolate the past — and not slightly stupid, but massively stupid.

If the value of a company doesn’t just scream out at you, it’s too close.

It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.

How do you compete against a true fanatic? You can only try to build the best possible moat and continuously attempt to widen it.

We don’t like trading agony for money

This is a good life lesson: getting the right people into your system is the most important thing you can do.

I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.

If you don’t keep learning, other people will pass you by. Temperament alone won’t do it – you need a lot of curiosity for a long, long time.

Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world.

The game of life is the game of everlasting learning. At least it is if you want to win.

I don’t spend much time regretting the past, once I’ve taken my lesson from it. I don’t dwell on it.

It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn’t get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.

The wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time, they don’t. It’s just that simple.

Any year that you don’t destroy one of your best-loved ideas is probably a wasted year.

A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.

The first five years have so much to do with how the next 80 turn out.

A big shot is a little shot who keeps on shooting, so keep trying.

Nobody wanted to believe Jack Ma.

A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.

You never want to fail because you didn’t work hard enough.

You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.

The bigger the star, the bigger the target.

Many things are improbable, only a few are impossible.