The best investment is in the business that compounds the fastest while requiring the least capital to do so. Most people focus on the numerator and ignore the denominator.

The best way to get smart is to try to be a little smarter than you were the day before—and to do that, you have to know what you don't know.

The best way to think about the future is not by extrapolating the past, but by understanding what's actually changing and what isn't.

The best way to get smart is to try to be a little smarter than you were the day before. But the way to get rich is to try to be a little richer than you were the day before.

The best way to think about the future is not by extrapolating the past, but by understanding incentive structures and what they reward. Most people get this backwards.

The difference between a great business and a mediocre one is often that the great business keeps compounding capital at high rates of return for decades, while the mediocre business cannot. Most people underestimate how powerful this difference becomes over time.

The best investment is in the business that compounds the fastest while requiring the least reinvestment. Most people focus on the first part and ignore the second, which is why they end up with businesses that eat cash.

The investing world is full of 'smart' people. But intelligence is not the limiting factor. The limiting factor is temperament. You need the temperament to be able to think and act independently.

The great thing about the public markets is that they give you a daily opportunity to think about what your business is worth. The terrible thing about it is that you can act on it.

The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth. You must study where the world is heading, not where it has been. Most people are heavily invested in the past.

The difference between a good business and a bad business is that a good business throws off cash and requires little capital to grow, while a bad business requires lots of capital and doesn't throw off much cash.

The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting. You have to be willing to let your profits run and cut your losses short.

The best investment is in yourself. But once you've bought yourself, you need to think about what produces the best return on that investment. And the answer is usually a business where you have some advantage—whether it's a better mousetrap, or better access, or better understanding of the customer.

The best decisions come from understanding what you don't know. Most people spend their time trying to be right about what they think they know, when they should be figuring out what they're wrong about.

The difference between a competent person and an incompetent one is often that the competent person has learned how to recognize and avoid the standard modes of self-deception.

The difference between a wise decision and a foolish one is often not apparent until years later. What matters is the quality of your thinking at the time, not whether you got lucky.

The best thing a company can do is compound capital efficiently over a long period of time. Everything else is details.

The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting. You have to be willing to hold. Most people aren't.

The best armor is to keep out of cannon shot.

The difference between investment success and mediocrity is often not intelligence—it's the ability to do nothing when nothing should be done. Most investors feel compelled to act, when the great fortunes are made by inaction.

The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting. You have to sit on your ass and do nothing.

The best thing a company can do is compound capital efficiently over a long period of time. That's what creates shareholder value. Most companies don't do it because they're distracted by quarterly earnings, acquisitions that destroy value, or just bad capital allocation decisions.

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.