black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

When you locate a bargain, you must ask, ‘Why me, God? Why am I the only one who could find this bargain?’

Charlie Munger

The average result has to be the average result. By definition, everybody can’t beat the market. As I always say, the iron rule of life is that only 20% of the people can be in the top fifth. That’s just the way it is.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Average Definition Life Marketing Myself People Result Rule
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.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Advantage Consistent Intelligence People Remark Stupidity Try
A lot of success in life and business comes from knowing what you want to avoid: early death, a bad marriage, etc.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Avoid Bad Business Death Early Marriage Success
Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Brilliant Unknown Wisdom Yourself
Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Bed Knowledge Learning Smart Wake Up Yourself
Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Cost Decision Intelligence Opportunity People
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

Basic Habit Mental Reading Structure Wisdom
To the man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Appearance Man Problem Yourself
To me, it’s obvious that the winner has to bet very selectively. It’s been obvious to me since very early in life. I don’t know why it’s not obvious to very many other people.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Early Investment Life Myself People Win
There is bound to be a regression toward the mean.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Bound Method Regression
If you want to understand science, you have to understand math. In business, if you’re enumerate, you’re going to be a klutz. The good thing about business is that you don’t have to know any higher math.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Business Goodness Mathematics Science Understand Yourself
The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Big Marketing Buy Money Sell Wait
You must force yourself to consider opposing arguments. Especially when they challenge your best loved ideas.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Argument Best Challenge Force Ideas Love
A foreign correspondent, after talking to me for a while, once said: “You don’t seem smart enough to be so good at what you’re doing. Do you have an explanation?”
CHARLIE MUNGER

Enough Explanation Goodness Smart Talk Yourself
Step by step you get ahead, but rarely in fast spurts.
CHARLIE MUNGER

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

Company Scream Value Yourself
It’s stupid the way people extrapolate the past — and not slightly stupid, but massively stupid.
CHARLIE MUNGER

People Past Stupidity Way
Most people are too fretful, they worry to much. Success means being very patient, but aggressive when it’s time.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Aggression Meaning People Success Time Worry
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.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Big heavy Offering Oneself Opportunity Simplicity Time Wisdom World
I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Argument Myself Opinion Side
All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Death Funny Myself Place
Move only when you have an advantage. It’s very basic. You have to understand the odds and have the discipline to bet only when the odds are in your favor.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Advantage Basic Discipline Move Yourself
If we’ve been a little more successful than other people, is because we always realised that the school of life was always open, and if you were not learning more you are falling behind.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Fall Learning Life Open People School Success Yourself
I think that, every time you saw the word EBITDA, you should substitute the word “bullshit” earnings.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Myself Substitution Thinking Time
Bull markets go to people’s heads. If you’re a duck on a pond, and it’s rising due to a downpour, you start going up in the world. But you think it’s you, not the pond.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Head Marketing People Rise Start Thinking World Yourself
We try more to profit from always remembering the obvious than from grasping the esoteric.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Ego Profit Remember Try
Spend less than you make; always be saving something. Put it into a tax-deferred account. Over time, it will begin to amount to something. This is such a no-brainer.
CHARLIE MUNGER

Beginning Save Time Yourself

When you locate a bargain, you must ask, ‘Why me, God? Why am I the only one who could find this bargain?’

Related Topics

Popular Authors

When you locate a bargain, you must ask, ‘Why me, God? Why am I the only one who could find this bargain?’

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Charlie Munger Quotes