Charlie Munger: "Try to go to bed at night a little wiser than you were when you got up. If you keep doing that for a long time and accumulate some experience — good and bad — as you try to master what you're trying to do, people who do that almost never fail utterly. They may have a bad period when luck goes against them or something, but very few people have ever failed with that [approach]. If you have the right temperament, you may rise slowly — but you're sure to rise."

Warren Buffett: "Fiscal policy scares me more than monetary policy." "It is easier to obtain votes if you give people money. Just like I want to keep my job at Berkshire, [politicians] want to get elected next year." "My dad was in Congress and I got to view how it behaved then — and I don't think its behavior has improved since 1942 when I first went there." (CNBC || 2023)

If you need a Sunday evening read, why not catch up on all of last week's Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway news. Including new info on the Bending Spoons investment, Berkshire hitting all-time highs, the iPhone Duo launch, and more! kingswell.io/p/the-berkshire…

Tim Cook: "We know that you can only do it really great on a few things, so the other part of our model is to focus." "We would not be able to be really great if we had to do many, many different products. We couldn't do that. We know we couldn't do it, so we don't even try."

Warren Buffett: "Think about the businesses in your own hometown. Which would you like to buy into? Which do you think you could understand their economics? Which do you think will be around 10-20 years from now? Which do you think would be very tough to compete with? Just keep asking yourself questions about businesses, talk with other people about them, [and] you will extend your knowledge over time."

Warren Buffett: "You can disrupt an economy a lot easier than you can put it back together again." "We don't want to mess up our economic machine — and it can be done by inflation." (CNBC || 2023)

Warren Buffett: "You'd be amazed at how many businesses I don't feel that I understand well." "The biggest thing is not how big your circle of competence is, but knowing where the perimeter is."

Warren Buffett: "If we went into some very major war, the value of money would go down. That's happened in virtually every war that I'm aware of. The last thing you'd want to do is hold money during a war." "You're going to be a lot better off owning productive assets over the next fifty years than you will be owning pieces of paper (cash)." (CNBC || 2014)

In the mid-1980s, Costco's entrance into the Midwest market proved a bridge too far for the young company. Co-founder Jim Sinegal discussed the "very difficult decision" to exit the region and how Costco left in as member- and employee-friendly a way as possible. "When we left, we left on as good of terms as we could. We refunded every single dollar of membership [fees] that we had collected. We offered every employee a chance to come with us to another city or a severance package. We paid every supplier completely so that they got all the money that they were due. Because we knew, at some point in time, we'd probably be coming back to the Midwest."

Berkshire Hathaway's stock price is up close to 9% in October alone — and continues to cut into the S&P 500's lead for the full year. (Chart from CNBC's Warren Buffett Watch)

Apple CEO John Ternus: "This is, I am convinced, the most exciting time in my career to be building product — because AI has so much potential." "Our focus is what it always is. We focus not on technology, but on product — and how do we leverage technology to build products and features and experiences that really matter to people." "If we're doing that right, no one has to know that it was AI that [made] it happen. They just want to know, 'Wow, I was able to do that thing that I couldn't do before and it was fun and it was easy.'" (TIME || 2026)

Warren Buffett: "The rail business, over time, will be a very decent business. It's an enormous asset to the country." "Rail does move heavy goods very cheaply over long distances — and it's also environmentally friendly compared to highway traffic — so the future of railroads is very good." (CNBC || 2014)

Charlie Munger: "Where you've got complexity — which by its very nature provides better opportunities to be mistaken and not have it come to notice or to be fraudulent and not have it be found out — you're going to get more fraud and mistakes than you are if you're a business where you shovel sand out of the river and sell it by the truckload. Just as a business that sells natural gas is going to have more explosions than a business that sells sand, a business like these major financial institutions — by its nature — is going to have way more problems."

Warren Buffett: "Inflation is a constant threat to a country." "I said in the annual report that Berkshire can offer some protection against inflation, but the effect of inflation can be wild ... It's not a good thing for society." "The United States has generally done a pretty good job of keeping inflation from getting out of control." (CNBC || 2023)

Steve Jobs: "The people that are really good want to work with the best people they can find. Hopefully, people that are even better than them." "If you work with people who are better than you, then you really grow."

Warren Buffett: "In 1962, when I set up our office, I put seven items on the wall. Our art budget was $7. I went down to the library and, for $1 each, I made photocopies of [important newspaper] pages from financial history." "Those seven days that I put up on the wall... Life in financial markets has got no relation to sigmas. If everybody that operated in financial markets had never had any concept of standard errors and so on, they would be a lot better off."

Chris Davis: "Part of our duty in managing outside client money is not just to maximize performance — it's also to try to minimize the consequences that come from self-inflicted bad investment behavior." (The 100 Year Thinkers || 2026)

Warren Buffett: "Our preference at Berkshire is to keep buying big operating businesses. We like owning equities. We'll make money in equities as an alternative — but in terms of building Berkshire for the long term, we just like adding big chunks of earning power from operating businesses which we are going to keep forever. None of the stocks [we own] are forever, but they're generally for very long terms." (CNBC || 2014)