If horses had controlled investment decisions, there would have been no auto industry.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that without intelligent decision-making, potentially groundbreaking industries may never have emerged.
Warren Buffett's quote highlights the importance of thoughtful and informed decision-making in investment and business. It implies that relying on instinct or outdated paradigms, as represented by 'horses', could prevent innovation, such as the creation of the auto industry. It serves as a reminder that progress comes from rational choices rather than traditional or instinctual views.
In practice
In a business meeting discussing new ventures, one might use this quote to emphasize the need for innovative thinking.
I have no views as to where it will be, but the one thing I can tell you is it won't do anything between now and then except look at you. Whereas, you know, Coca-Cola (KO) will be making money, and I think Wells Fargo (WFC) will be making a lot of money and there will be a lot - and it's a lot - it's a lot better to have a goose that keeps laying eggs than a goose that just sits there and eats insurance and storage and a few things like that.
If the world couldn't see your results, would you rather be thought of as the world's greatest investor but in reality have the world's worst record? Or be thought of as the world's worst investor when you were actually the best?
Cash never makes us happy, but it's better to have the money burning a hole in Berkshire's pocket than resting comfortably in someone else's.
I think you should read everything you can. In my case, by the age of 10, I'd read every book in the Omaha public library about investing, some twice. _x000D_ You need to fill your mind with various competing thoughts and decide which make sense.
The most common cause of low prices is pessimism - some times pervasive, some times specific to a company or industry. We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism but because we like the prices it produces. It's optimism that is the enemy of the rational buyer.
One’s objective should be to get it right, get it quick, get it out and get it over. Your problem won’t improve with age.
I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.
It was getting hard to keep all the things I didn't know inside me.
Don’t underestimate the value of irony—it is extremely valuable.
My wisdom is as spurned as chaos. What is my nothingness, compared to the amazement that awaits you?
We're receiving information from all the planes of our consciousness all the time, but we don't acknowledge their existence; we treat the information as static, as noise.
You must not for one instant give up the effort to build new lives for yourselves. Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway to life. This is not an easy struggle. Indeed, it may be the most difficult task in the world, for opening the door to your own life is, in the end, more difficult than opening the doors to the mysteries of the universe.
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