In his own words
Munger on Wit
24 sourced quotes. All themes
“I have nothing to add.”
A decades-long catchphrase — a recurring meeting line, not a single occasion.
“Every time you see the word EBITDA, you should substitute the words 'bullshit earnings.'”
“If you mix raisins with turds, they're still turds.”
On dot-com speculation and bad acquisitions.
“Some people go, well, it's a small Berkshire and it will double like rabbits — and, of course, it's not a small Berkshire. I'm 99 years old, for Christ's sake.”
Cleaned-transcript wording; phrasing varies slightly across transcripts.
“This only masquerades as a shareholder's meeting. It's really a gathering to hear the thoughts of the assistant headmaster of a cult.”
His recurring self-deprecating opener; he reused the 'assistant cult leader' joke for years.
“Both parties have wings that are full of idiots. That is the nature of the game. And the reason it has worked as well as it has is that the people in the middle have sort of over time tuned out the idiots on both sides. But every once in a while, the idiots get in control. And, of course, that has terrible consequences. That's the nature of the system.”
From his BBC interview — a separate segment from Buffett's. These are Munger's words, not Buffett's.
“It's hard to imagine anything dumber than the way the Chinese hold stocks. They're so good at everything else. It shows how hard it is to be rational.”
About speculative retail trading in China — not Chinese companies, which he praised the same day.
“One thing that's nice about the human condition is that people are always doing thoroughly ridiculous things. If you don't laugh a little, those things will break you.”
“As for the corporation consultants who advise on salaries, all I can say is that prostitution would be a step up for them.”
“If you see the world accurately, it's bound to be humorous, because it's ridiculous.”
“My idea of shooting a fish in a barrel is draining the barrel first.”
“I have a black belt in chutzpah. I was born with it.”
“So while Warren and Charlie will soon be gone — not too soon in my case, but I'm a little worried about Warren — the stupidity of management practice in the rest of the corporate world will likely remain ample enough to give this company some comparative advantage way into the future.”
On Berkshire's durability after they're gone; Munger, the elder, jokes 'not too soon in my case.'
“There's obviously been some flight to quality in reinsurance, but I'd call it more of a dribble to quality.”
“The one thing we've always guaranteed is that the future will be a lot worse than the past.”
“Well, at Berkshire, we have a simple problem of estate planning. Just hold the goddamn stock.”
His one-line estate plan; when Buffett said it doesn't fit everyone, Munger replied 'it only fits 95%.'
“I think it's really stupid for a state to drive the rich people out. They're old. They keep your hospitals busy. They don't burden your schools, the police department, your prisons. They give a lot. Who wouldn't want rich people?”
“Both Warren and I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we'd started in better businesses instead of trading stamps, aluminum, textile companies — we even had a windmill company at one time. It took us a long time to wise up.”
“I'll pay $2.5 million not to read it.”
Munger's line, recounted by Buffett (who later retold the figure as $2 million).
“Imagine extending credit to a guy whose nickname is the 'bouncing Czech.' If you wrote it as satire, people would say it was too extreme to be funny.”
On Robert Maxwell; the 'bouncing Czech' nickname was the UK press's.
“Those are not hard sciences, finance and economics. And finance really attracts people who should have gone into snake charming.”
“It's like the old story about the little store with salt all over its walls. A stranger comes in and says to the storeowner, 'You must sell a lot of salt.' And he replies, 'No, I don't. But you should see the guy who sells me salt.'”
A joke he retells to illustrate a chain store's centralized buying.
“Coca-Cola was run for years by a man with a very severe mental impairment. The directors just assumed he was drunk and let him stay there year after year. Now, that's my idea of a wonderful business — you can be mentally defective and run it pretty well.”
“Man, as a social animal who has the gift of language, is born to prattle and to pour out twaddle that does much damage when serious work is being attempted.”
From the Twaddle Tendency in his misjudgment framework.