In the search [of a deal], we adopt the same attitude one might find appropriate in looking for a spouse: It pays to be active, interested, and open-minded, but it does not pay to be in a hurry.
Interpretation
Approaching deals should be done with the same care and patience as finding a life partner.
Warren Buffett emphasizes the importance of taking a thoughtful and measured approach when seeking a deal, similar to the way one would approach the search for a spouse. He suggests that being proactive, engaged, and open to possibilities is beneficial, yet rushing the process can lead to unsatisfactory outcomes.
In practice
This quote can be used to encourage patience in business negotiations during a seminar.
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.
Set your sights beyond what you can see. There is true majesty in the concept of an unseen power which can neither be measured nor weighed.
If you lose wonder, you've lost everything.
All people on the planet are children, except for a very few. No one is grown up except those free of desire.
Speak of the moderns without contempt and of the ancients without idolatry; judge them all by their merits, but not by their age
Money is needed to bring about many good things but when your heart is attached, it destroys you
It is through the idealism of youth that man catches sight of truth, and in that idealism he possesses a wealth which he must never exchange for anything else.
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