I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the discrepancy between societal values and the rewards given to different professions.
Warren Buffett emphasizes the irony in how society values various professions differently, suggesting that extraordinary contributions to humanity, like saving lives or teaching, garner little monetary reward compared to financial gains made from economic activities like trading. This quote provokes thought about what we prioritize and reward in our economy and challenges us to reflect on our values regarding professions that contribute to society.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a graduation speech to inspire future educators and humanitarian workers.
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.
No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.
Tomorrow exists even though I may not exist in it.
If the last to know he’s an addict is the addict, then maybe the last to know when a man means what he says is the man himself, he reflected.
If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.
The bond between a man and his profession is similar to that which ties him to his country; it is just as complex, often ambivalent, and in general it is understood completely only when it is broken: by exile or emigration in the case of one's country, by retirement in the case of a trade or profession.
Watch yourself all your life in a mirror and you'll see Death at work like bees in a glass hive.
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