Charlie Munger is an American investor, businessman and philanthropist. He works alongside Warren Buffet as the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. He is also the chairman of the Daily Journal Coporation and Director of Costco Wholesale Corporation.
Charlie Munger has an estimated net worth of $1.62 billion according to Forbes and has a lot of wisdom that you can learn from. Hope you enjoy the wise Charlie Munger quotes below.
55 Charlie Munger Quotes
1. “You’ll do better if you have passion for something in which you have aptitude. If Warren Buffett had gone into ballet, no one would have heard of him.” – Charlie Munger
2. “I would argue that passion is more important than brain power.” – Charlie Munger
3. “I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.” – Charlie Munger
4. “Invest in a business any fool can run, because someday a fool will. If it won’t stand a little mismanagement, it’s not much of a business.” – Charlie Munger
5. “Generally speaking, envy, resentment, revenge and self-pity are disastrous modes of thoughts. Self-pity gets fairly close to paranoia, and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse. You do not want to drift into self-pity…Self-pity will not improve the situation.” – Charlie Munger
6. “Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets and can be lost in a heartbeat.” – Charlie Munger
7. “There’s danger in just shoveling out money to people who say, ‘My life is a little harder than it used to be. At a certain place you’ve got to say to the people, ‘Suck it in and cope, buddy. Suck it in and cope.'” – Charlie Munger
8. “There is no better teacher than history in determining the future. There are answers worth billions of dollars in $30 history book.” – Charlie Munger
9. “Confucius said that real knowledge is knowing the extent of one’s ignorance. Aristotle and Socrates said the same thing. Is it a skill that can be taught or learned? It probably can, if you have enough of a stake riding on the outcome. Some people are extraordinarily good at knowing the limits of their knowledge, because they have to be. Think of somebody who’s been a professional tightrope walker for 20 years – and has survived. He couldn’t survive as a tightrope walker for 20 years unless he knows exactly what he knows and what he doesn’t know. He’s worked so hard at it, because he knows if he gets it wrong he won’t survive. The survivors know…Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.” – Charlie Munger
10. “What do you want to avoid? Such an easy answer: sloth and unreliability. If you’re unreliable it doesn’t matter what your virtues are. You’re going to crater immediately. Doing what you have faithfully engaged to do should be an automatic part of your conduct. You want to avoid sloth and unreliability.” – Charlie Munger
11. “Another thing that does one in, of course, is the self-serving bias to which we’re all subject. You think the ‘True Little Me’ is entitled to do what it wants to do. And, for instance, why shouldn’t the True Little Me overspend my income. There once was a man who became the most famous composer in the world but was utterly miserable most of the time, and one of the reasons was because he always overspent his income. That was Mozart. If Mozart can’t get by with this kind of asinine conduct, I don’t think you should try.” – Charlie Munger
12. “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.” – Charlie Munger
13. “Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich, not because I wanted Ferrari’s – I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it.” – Charlie Munger
14. “Wisdom acquisition is a moral duty. It’s not something you do just to advance in life. Wisdom acquisition is a moral duty. As a corollary to that proposition which is very important, it means that you are hooked for lifetime learning. And without lifetime learning, you people are not going to do very well. You are not going to get very far in life based on what you already know. You’re going to advance in life by what you learn after you leave here.” – Charlie Munger
15. “Those of us who have been very fortunate have a duty to give back. Whether one gives a lot as one goes along as I do, or a little and then a lot (when one dies) as Warren does, is a matter of personal preference.” – Charlie Munger
16. “Assume life will be really tough, and then ask if you can handle it. If the answer is yes, you’ve won.” – Charlie Munger
17. “When you borrow a man’s car, always return it with a tank of gas.” – Charlie Munger
18. “There’s only one way to the top: hard work.” – Charlie Munger
19. “I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody’s that smart.” – Charlie Munger
20. “Our game is to recognize a big idea when it comes along, when one doesn’t come along very often. Opportunity comes to the prepared mind.” – Charlie Munger
21. “Do what you like and are good at.” – Charlie Munger
22. “Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day-if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.” – Charlie Munger
23. “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.” – Charlie Munger
24. “The big money is not in the buying and selling. But in the waiting.” – Charlie Munger
25. “Almost all good businesses engage in pain today for gain tomorrow activities.” – Charlie Munger
26. “I think that one should recognize reality even when one doesn’t like it; indeed, especially when one doesn’t like it.” – Charlie Munger
27. “It takes character to sit with all that cash and to do nothing. I didn’t get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.” – Charlie Munger
28. “To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people.” – Charlie Munger
29. “The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more.” – Charlie Munger
30. “The best armor of old age is a well-spent life preceding it.” – Charlie Munger
31. “My habit of committing far more time to learning and thinking than to doing is no accident.” – Charlie Munger
32. “When any guy offers you a chance to earn lots of money without risk, don’t listen to the rest of his sentence. Follow this, and you’ll save yourself a lot of misery.” – Charlie Munger
33. “Obviously if you want to get good at something which is competitive, you have to think about it and practice a lot. You have to keep learning because the world keeps changing and competitors keep learning.” – Charlie Munger
34. “We both, Warren Buffett and I, insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think.” – Charlie Munger
35. “Choose clients as you would friends.” – Charlie Munger
36. “I think track records are very important. If you start trying to have a perfect one in a simple thing like honesty, you’re well on your way to success in this world.” – Charlie Munger
37. “Spend less than you make; always be saving something.” – Charlie Munger
38. “The iron rule of nature is: you get what you reward for. If you want ants to come, you put sugar on the floor.” – Charlie Munger
39. “No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.” – Charlie Munger
40. “If you always tell people why, they’ll understand it better, they’ll consider it more important, and they’ll be more likely to comply.” – Charlie Munger
41. “In my whole life, I have known no wise people over a broad subject matter area who didn’t read all the time. None. Zero.” – Charlie Munger
42. “Always take the high road, it’s far less crowded. – Charlie Munger
43. “Take one simple idea and take it seriously.” – Charlie Munger
44. “A majority of life’s errors are caused by forgetting what one is really trying to do.” – Charlie Munger
45. “People calculate too much and think too little.” – Charlie Munger
46. “Those who keep learning, will keep rising in life.” – Charlie Munger
47. “You must force yourself to consider opposing arguments. Especially when they challenge your best loved ideas.” – Charlie Munger
48. “Mimicking the herd invites regression to the man.” – Charlie Munger
49. “If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group, then to hell with them.” – Charlie Munger
50. “There is no way you can live an adequate life without making many mistakes.” – Charlie Munger
51. “Life will have terrible blows in it, horrible blows, unfair blows. It doesn’t matter. And some people recover and others don’t. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He thought that every missed chance in life was an opportunity to behave well, every missed chance in life was an opportunity to learn something, and that your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in constructive fashion. That is a very good idea.” – Charlie Munger
52. “Acknowledging what you don’t know is the dawning of wisdom.” – Charlie Munger
53. “Once you get into debt, it’s hell to get out. Don’t let credit card debt carry over. You can’t get ahead paying eighteen percent.” – Charlie Munger
54. “Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward. What happens if all our plans go wrong? Where don’t we want to go, and how do you get there? Instead of looking for success, make a list of how to fail instead. Tell me where I’m going to die, that is, so I don’t go there.” – Charlie Munger
55. “This is a good lesson for anyone: the ability to take criticism constructively and learn from it.” – Charlie Munger
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