Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist
Roger Lowenstein
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Buffett found it 'extraordinary' that academics studied such things. They studied what was measurable, rather than what was meaningful. 'As a friend [Charlie Munger] said, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
“The modern spirit is a hesitant one. Spontaneity has given way to cautious legalisms, and the age of heroes has been superseded by a cult of specialization. We have no more giants; only obedient ants.”
“Buffett's methodology was straightforward, and in that sense 'simple.' It was not simple in the sense of being easy to execute. Valuing companies such as Coca-Cola took a wisdom forged by years of experience; even then, there was a highly subjective element. A Berkshire stockholder once complained that there were no more franchises like Coca-Cola left. Munger tartly rebuked him. 'Why should it be easy to do something that, if done well two or three times, will make your family rich for life?”
“Buffett does enjoy being a billionaire, but in offbeat ways. As he put it, though money cannot change your health or how many people love you, it lets you be in 'more interesting environments.”
“Buffett's uncommon urge to chronicle made him a unique character in American life, not only a great capitalist but the Great Explainer of American capitalism. He taught a generation how to think about business, and he showed that securities were not just tokens like the Monopoly flatiron, and that investing need not be a game of chance. It was also a logical, commonsensical enterprise, like the tangible businesses beneath. He stripped Wall Street of its mystery and rejoined it to Main Street -- a mythical or disappearing place, perhaps, but one that is comprehensible to the ordinary American.”
“The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
“Buffett’s genius was largely a genius of character—of patience, discipline, and rationality.”
“Graham’s first goal was never to make money—it was to avoid losing any.”
“was the fate of New Bedford, Massachusetts, to be cursed by fleeting prosperity not once but twice. Founded by Pilgrims, it withstood a sacking by the British in the Revolutionary War and then became the center of the world’s whaling trade. Its damp, salt-drenched cobblestones led ever to the wharf, which gave New Bedford a livelihood yet left the town at risk should whaling fall upon the shoals. A local seaman—Herman Melville—said, “The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England.” Yet whence had its riches sprung? “Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered.…”
“The public shareholders who invested with Buffett also got rich, and in exactly the same proportion to their capital that Buffett did. The numbers themselves are almost inconceivable. If one had invested $10,000 when Buffett began his career, working out of his study in Omaha in 1956, and had stuck with him throughout, one would have had an investment at the end of 1995 worth $125 million.2”
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Book Keywords:
investing, meaningful, american, specialization, money, measurement, business, spirit, character, capitalist, academics, warren-buffett, billionaire, philosophy, charlie-munger, hero, capitalism
