Charlie Munger on Confidence Quotes

"The iron rule of life is that only twenty percent of the people can be in the top fifth."

"Reliability is the most important thing you can have. If you are unreliable, it doesn't matter what your virtues are."

"The world is not just going to give you results for having a high IQ."

"I think that, every time you see the word EBITDA, you should substitute the word 'bullsh*t earnings'."

"You must have the discipline to wait for the fat pitch."

"I’ve seen so many people who are very smart, but they’re like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest."

"You’re looking for a mispriced gamble. That’s what investing is. And you have to know enough to know whether the gamble is mispriced. That’s value investing."

"Being right means you have to be willing to be unconventional."

"I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do."

"The first rule of a happy life is low expectations. If you have unrealistic expectations, you’re going to be miserable all your life."

"We have a passion for keeping things simple."

"To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

"Acknowledging what you don't know is the dawning of wisdom."

"It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent."

"The big money is not in the buying and the selling, but in the waiting."

"We don’t have a process that we can name. We just try to stay as rational as we can."

"If you want to get a good spouse, the best way is to deserve a good spouse."

"Our game is to recognize a big idea when it comes along, because they don't come along very often."

"Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant."

"If you don't keep learning, other people will pass you by. Worthwhile, hard work is what it takes."

"We look for a horse with one chance in two of winning and which pays you three to one."

"Rationality is not just something you do so that you can make more money; it's a binding moral imperative."

"You have to have the confidence to act, but you also have to have the humility to know when you're wrong."

"Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward."

"You should have a list of things you don't do. I call it my 'not-to-do' list."

"Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up."

"If you have a circle of competence, it doesn't matter how big it is. But it is terribly important that you know where the edge is."

"A lot of people with high IQs are terrible investors because they’ve got terrible temperaments."

"Envy is a really stupid sin because it's the only one you could never possibly have any fun at."

"We have three baskets for investing: yes, no, and too tough to understand."

"Almost everyone has the ability to be more certain than they should be."

"If you think your IQ is 160 but it’s 150, you’re a disaster. It’s much better to have a 130 IQ and think it’s 120."

"You need a different checklist and different mental models for different companies. I can never make it easy by saying, 'Here are three things.'"