mental models 18
- Inversion frequently solves problems that nothing else will
- Knowing the big ideas of the disciplines well enough for an exam does not help; they have to sit in a mental latticework and be used automatically for life
Charlie Munger
Warren Buffett's business partner and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway; also chaired Wesco Financial Corporation from 1984 to 2011, where he wrote its annual letters himself.
Charlie Munger did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
What Charlie Munger says most about
behavioural science 11
- One has to allow for the self-serving bias of everybody else, and failing to do so is foolish
- People have an automatic tendency to think and act as they see others around them thinking and acting
humility 3
- One is not entitled to an opinion on a subject until one can state the arguments against one’s position better than its supporters
- The best antidote to excess self-regard is to force oneself to be more objective about oneself, one’s family and friends, one’s property and the value of one’s activity
agency 2
- The safest way to try to get what one wants is to try to deserve it
- Learning to ignore the examples of others when they are wrong is a skill few skills exceed in worth
curiosity 2
- Advancing in life depends more on what one learns later than on what one already knows
- People who are learning machines rise in life even when they are not the smartest or the most diligent
happiness 2
- Learning only from one’s own experience, and minimizing what one learns from the good and bad experience of others, is a sure-shot producer of misery and second-rate achievement
- Staying down after severe reverses guarantees being permanently mired in misery, since adversity is plentiful even for the lucky and wise
investing 2
- The wise bet heavily when the world offers them the odds, and not the rest of the time
- Over the long term a stock is hard put to earn a much better return than the business underneath it earns
mathematics 2
- Inversion frequently solves problems that nothing else will
- Without the elementary mathematics of probability in one’s repertoire, one gives everybody else a huge advantage