Charlie Munger on Work Quotes

"Opportunity comes to the prepared mind."

"Whenever you think that some situation or some person is ruining your life, it's actually you who are ruining your life. It's very simple. Realize that and you can start to fix it."

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

"Work for someone you admire and avoid someone you don't. That's a very simple rule, and it works."

"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."

"In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time—none, zero."

"The iron rule of nature is: you get what you reward. If you want ants to come, you put sugar on the floor."

"Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day-if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve."

"If you want to be a great thinker, you must develop a mind that can jump the boundaries of many disciplines."

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

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

"Without the method of learning, you're like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. It's just not going to work very well."

"If you don't get this elementary, but mildly unnatural, mathematics of elementary probability into your repertoire, then you go through a long life like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest."

"I think you should have a certain amount of respect for the reality that you're in. You shouldn't try to change it until you understand it."

"We have a passion for keeping things simple."

"Being a professional means you have to be reliable. You have to be someone that other people can count on."

"Master the best that other people have ever figured out. I don't believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody's that smart."

"You must have the discipline to wait for the right opportunity and then the courage to grasp it."

"Take a simple idea and take it seriously."

"You should have a work ethic that makes you want to be as useful as you can be to the people who are paying you."

"The best way to get what you want in life is to deserve what you want."

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

"Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean."

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

"I didn't get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities."

"Extreme patience combined with extreme decisiveness is the key to success."

"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."

"Avoid working for anyone you don't respect and admire."

"You must know the big ideas in the big disciplines and use them routinely – all of them, not just a few."

"I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines."

"I met the towering intellectuals in books, not in the classroom, which is natural. I can't remember when I first read Ben Franklin. I had Thomas Jefferson over my bed at seven or eight."

"You don't have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long time."

"Reliability is the most important part of being a successful person. If you're unreliable, it doesn't matter what your virtues are."