The best way to think about the future is not by extrapolating the past, but by understanding the incentive structures and constraints that will shape decisions.

The best investment is in yourself. But the second-best is almost always in a business that does something you understand, run by people you trust, at a price that makes sense.

The best thing a company can do is compound capital efficiently over decades. Everything else is noise.

The best time to buy is when there's blood in the streets. The best time to sell is when there's irrational exuberance. Most people do the opposite.

The best investment is in yourself. The second best is usually in a business that does something you don't understand, because then you're forced to think independently.

The difference between a wise decision and a foolish one is often not apparent until years later. What matters is having a systematic way to think about decisions, not the outcome of any single one.

The best business decision is often the one you don't make. Most of life's errors come from doing too much, not too little. Your job is to say no to a thousand good ideas so you can say yes to the one that matters.

The best way to think about the future is not by projecting the past, but by understanding what is actually changing in the world and which businesses benefit from that change versus which ones get hurt by it.

The difference between a good business decision and a bad one is often not the decision itself, but whether you had the intellectual humility to reverse it when new information arrived.

The best time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. Once it starts raining, it's too late. Most people wait until there's a crisis, but the best businesses invest in capabilities and relationships before they desperately need them.

The best business decision is often the one you don't make. Most of life's errors come from doing things, not from leaving them undone.

The difference between a tolerable decision and a good decision is that a good decision can be explained in one sentence. If you find yourself giving a speech to justify it, you've made a tolerable decision.

The best investment is in yourself, but the second-best is often in businesses where you can understand what they do and where they're going better than the market does.

The best business decision is often the one you don't make. Most of life's errors come from doing the wrong thing, not from doing nothing.

The difference between a business that compounds and one that doesn't is often not the talent of the founder, but the defensibility of the moat—and most founders underestimate how much time it takes to build one.

The difference between a business that compounds and one that doesn't is often not the brilliance of the idea, but the willingness to accept small returns for decades while reinvesting everything. Most people can't do this psychologically.

The best process for making decisions is often worse than the best decision-maker. Process forces you to justify actions in advance; great decision-makers often know things they can't yet articulate. The trap is confusing process with wisdom.

The best thing a company can do is compound capital efficiently over decades. But the second-best thing is to be so boring that people forget to worry about you.

The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth. It is the always-uncertain future growth upon which the investor must capitalize, and it is those who will profit who must pay the delicate task of correctly appraising such uncertain future.

The best investment is in yourself. But the second-best investment is often in things that are so obvious and so important that nobody is paying attention to them because everyone assumes someone else is handling it.

The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting. If you have the temperament, you can make a lot of money by sitting on your ass.

The difference between a mediocre business and a great business is that the great business finds a way to do the same thing at 1/10th the cost. Most people focus on revenue growth; they should focus on unit economics.

The best thing a public company can do is nothing. The second best is to buy back stock when it's cheap. The worst is to overpay for acquisitions or go on acquisition binges.

The best thing for your long-term results is to be boring. Exciting investing is likely to be bad for your wealth. Most of the time, the best thing to do is nothing.

The best thing you can do is to be a learning machine. You should go out of your way to try to be wrong and to seek disconfirming evidence.

The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting. If you have the capital and the patience, you can ride out the volatility and let compounding do the work.

The great investors buy when others are fearful, and sell when others are greedy. But the converse is also true—they tend to avoid buying when others are greedy, even if the business is good. Temperament matters more than IQ.

The best way to think about capital allocation is not how much money you make, but how much of what you make you keep. Most people focus on the former and ignore the latter, which is why they stay poor.

The best decisions in business often come from understanding what you don't know rather than from expertise in what you do. Most people are taught to eliminate ignorance, but the real skill is in recognizing which ignorance matters.

The best investment you can make is in yourself. But most people won't because it's not tangible—you can't point to it on a balance sheet. Yet it compounds faster than any stock.

The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.

The best thing a public company can do with excess cash is repurchase stock when it trades below intrinsic value, but the worst thing is to repurchase stock when it trades above intrinsic value. Most companies do the latter.

The business schools reward complex behavior, but simple behavior is more effective. Most people overcomplicate their investing and their business decisions.

The best business decision is often the one that's hardest to make—the decision to do nothing when everyone else is doing something.

The best way to think about capital allocation is not how much money you make, but how much you keep after you've paid taxes, inflation, and the cost of maintaining your standard of living.

The best investment you can make is in yourself. But most people won't because it's the one thing they can't see the results from immediately.

The idea that it's hard to wring out the last inch of performance, but the difference between a mediocre business and a great one is often just that last inch of improvement applied over decades.

The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting. Lethargy bordering on sloth remains the best investment style.

The best investment you can make is in yourself. But most people won't because it's not a leveraged bet, and you can't borrow money to do it.

The size of the opportunity is inversely proportional to how many people think it's an opportunity. If everyone believes something is a great opportunity, then by the time you get there, it's probably not.

The best thing a public company can do is repurchase stock when it's trading below intrinsic value—but the worst thing is to repurchase stock when it's trading above it, which happens far too often because of executive compensation incentives.

The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily. The second rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.

The best thing a public company can do with cash is buy back stock when it trades below intrinsic value. Everything else is just noise.

The best investment you can make is in yourself. But most people won't because it requires delayed gratification—you must become a student of your own ignorance.

The best way to think about capital allocation is not how much money you make, but how much you keep after accounting for the permanent loss of capital. Most investors focus on returns; the best ones obsess over never losing what they've built.

The big difference between what I do and what a lot of people in the hedge fund world do is that I actually think about the economics of the business, whereas a lot of people are just trying to make a quick buck.