"You do things when the opportunities come along. I've had periods in my life when I've had a bundle of ideas come along, and I've had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I'll do something. If not, I won't do a damn thing."

"I just think that - when a country needs more income and we do, we're only taking in 15 percent of GDP, I mean, that - that - when a country needs more income, they should get it from the people that have it."

"The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective."

"If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians."

"Our favorite holding period is forever."

"I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of - of American capitalism."

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."

"It's never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but its not always a smooth ride."

"The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on."

"Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years."

"Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We'll break out of it. It takes time."

"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get."

"If a business does well, the stock eventually follows."

"Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1."

"The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule."

"Risk is a part of God's game, alike for men and nations."

"Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken."

"Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it."

"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."

"You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong."

"Value is what you get."

"We believe that according the name 'investors' to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a 'romantic.'"

"I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here."

"We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time."

"The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves-and the better the teacher, the better the student body."

"We're still in a recession. We're not gonna be out of it for a while, but we will get out."

"Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway."

"Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote."

"Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction."

"Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre."

"You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in - in 2007, we just didn't know it was uncertain. It was - uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn't know it."

"The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth."

"In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield."

"I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years."

"When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results."

"When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact."

"There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we've got a system that allows them to do it."

"I am a huge bull on this country. We will not have a double-dip recession at all. I see our businesses coming back almost across the board."

"Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."

"If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end - people like myself - should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it."

"Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars."

"In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497."

"We've used up a lot of bullets. And we talk about stimulus. But the truth is, we're running a federal deficit that's 9 percent of GDP. That is stimulative as all get out. It's more stimulative than any policy we've followed since World War II."

"It's better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you'll drift in that direction."

"The only time to buy these is on a day with no "y" in it."

"Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks."

"Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value."

"A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought."

"Economic medicine that was previously meted out by the cupful has recently been dispensed by the barrel. These once unthinkable dosages will almost certainly bring on unwelcome after-effects. Their precise nature is anyone's guess, though one likely consequence is an onslaught of inflation."

"Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it's not going to get the business."