Top 300 Charlie Munger Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “I’m used to people with very high IQs knowing how to recognize reality, but there’s a huge human tendency where it may be instructive to think that whatever you’re doing to succeed is all right.”

— Charlie Munger

102. “I don’t want to sell credit to people who are going to hurt themselves with it. You should only sell products that are good for the people who use them. Some disagree with this, but I know I’m right. That is to say, you’re talking to a Republican who admires Elizabeth Warren.”

— Charlie Munger

103. “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.”

— Charlie Munger

104. “Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs.”

— Charlie Munger

105. “Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group then to hell with them.”

— Charlie Munger

106. “It’s simplicity itself that its future will be way worse than its past.”

— Charlie Munger

107. “It would be easier to screw up American Express than Coke or Gillette, but it’s an immensely strong business.”

— Charlie Munger

108. “Early Charlie Munger is a horrible career model for the young because not enough was delivered to civilization in return for what was wrested from capitalism. And other similar career models are even worse.”

— Charlie Munger

109. “Wall Street has too much wealth and political power.”

— Charlie Munger

110. “It’s waiting that helps you as an investor, and a lot of people just can’t stand to wait. If you didn’t get the deferred-gratification gene, you’ve got to work very hard to overcome that.”

— Charlie Munger

111. “One could imagine a period like Japan 13 years ago, however, in which indexing over time wouldn’t work.”

— Charlie Munger

112. “Step by step you get ahead, but rarely in fast spurts.”

— Charlie Munger

113. “We have a passion for keeping things simple.”

— Charlie Munger

114. “The game of life is the game of everlasting learning. At least it is if you want to win.”

— Charlie Munger

115. “You’re not going to get very far in life based on what you already know. You’re going to advance in life by what you’re going to learn after you leave here.”

— Charlie Munger

116. “Kellogg’s and Campbell’s moats have also shrunk due to the increased buying power of supermarkets and companies like Wal-Mart. The muscle power of Wal-Mart and Costco has increased dramatically.”

— Charlie Munger

117. “It’s been my experience in life if you just keep thinking and reading, you don’t have to work.”

— Charlie Munger

118. “If only I had the influence with my wife and children that I have in some other quarters!”

— Charlie Munger

119. “My idea of a good place to shop is Costco – it has these heavily marbled fillet steaks. The idea of eating some wheat thing and washing it down with carrot juice has never appealed to me.”

— Charlie Munger

120. “The quality of the medical care delivered, including the pharmaceutical industry, has improved a lot. I don’t think it’s crazy for a rich country like the USto spend 15% of GDP on healthcare, and if it rose to 16-17%, it’s not a big worry.”

— Charlie Munger

121. “Some people seem to think there’s no trouble just because it hasn’t happened yet. If you jump out the window at the 42nd floor and you’re still doing fine as you pass the 27th floor, that doesn’t mean you don’t have a serious problem. I would want to address the problem right now.”

— Charlie Munger

122. “I think liberal art faculties at major universities have views that are not very sound, at least on public policy issues – they may know a lot of French however.”

— Charlie Munger

123. “Bull markets go to people’s heads. If you’re a duck on a pond, and it’s rising due to a downpour, you start going up in the world. But you think it’s you, not the pond.”

— Charlie Munger

124. “If all you succeed in doing in life is getting rich by buying little pieces of paper, it’s a failed life. Life is more than being shrewd in wealth accumulation.”

— Charlie Munger

125. “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.”

— Charlie Munger

126. “Move only when you have an advantage. It’s very basic. You have to understand the odds and have the discipline to bet only when the odds are in your favor.”

— Charlie Munger

127. “There’s no way that you can live an adequate life without making many mistakes.”

— Charlie Munger

128. “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.”

— Charlie Munger

129. “Choose clients as you would friends.”

— Charlie Munger

130. “The only way to win is to work, work, work, work, and hope to have a few insights.”

— Charlie Munger

131. “Warren is one of the best learning machines on this earth. The turtles who outrun the hares are learning machines. If you stop learning in this world, the world rushes right by you.”

— Charlie Munger

132. “I try to get rid of people who always confidently answer questions about which they don’t have any real knowledge.”

— Charlie Munger

133. “Forgetting your mistakes is a terrible error if you are trying to improve your cognition.”

— Charlie Munger

134. “If you can get good at destroying your own wrong ideas, that is a great gift.”

— Charlie Munger

135. “If you can buy the best companies, over time the pricing takes care of itself.”

— Charlie Munger

136. “Let me know what your problem is, and I will try to make it more difficult for you.”

— Charlie Munger

137. “I don’t spend much time regretting the past, once I’ve taken my lesson from it. I don’t dwell on it.”

— Charlie Munger

138. “All sensible investing is value investing.”

— Charlie Munger

139. “Your life must focus on the maximization of objectivity.”

— Charlie Munger

140. “You don’t have to have perfect wisdom to get very rich – just a bit better than average over a long period of time.”

— Charlie Munger

141. “We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.”

— Charlie Munger

142. “When you mix raisins and turds, you’ve still got turds.”

— Charlie Munger

143. “You’ve got to have models in your head and you’ve got to array you experience – both vicarious and direct – onto this latticework of mental models.”

— Charlie Munger

144. “It’s not a competency if you don’t know the edge of it.”

— Charlie Munger

145. “When you locate a bargain, you must ask, ‘Why me, God? Why am I the only one who could find this bargain?’”

— Charlie Munger

146. “Just as a man working with his tools should know its limitations, a man working with his cognitive apparatus must know its limitations.”

— Charlie Munger

147. “Even in pure mathematics they can’t remove all paradox, and the rest of us should also recognize we are going to have to endure a lot of paradox, like it or not.”

— Charlie Munger

148. “The way to win is to work, work, work, work and hope to have a few insights And you’re probably not going to be smart enough to find thousands in a lifetime. And when you get a few, you really load up. It’s just that simple.”

— Charlie Munger

149. “A lot of success in life and business comes from knowing what you want to avoid: early death, a bad marriage, etc.”

— Charlie Munger

150. “You must force yourself to consider opposing arguments. Especially when they challenge your best loved ideas.”

— Charlie Munger