If you are looking for some of the most insightful and wise Charlie Munger quotes and sayings, you’re in the right place! 🤑
Below, you will find some of Charlie Munger’s most iconic and valuable quotes about money, investing, the markets, people, compound interest, and life in general.
Side note: If I have missed any must-have Charlie Munger quotes, please share them in the comments as I will be happy to include them in future updates! 😃
57+ Insightful Charlie Munger Quotes
1. “Smart people do dumb things.” -Charlie Munger
2. “Do what you like and are good at.” – Charlie Munger
3. “Choose clients as you would friends.” – Charlie Munger
4. “Take one simple idea and take it seriously.” – Charlie Munger
5. “Being an effective teacher is a high calling.” – Charlie Munger
6. “There’s only one way to the top: hard work.” – Charlie Munger
7. “Mimicking the herd invites regression to the man.” – Charlie Munger
8. “Spend less than you make; always be saving something.” – Charlie Munger
9. “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember your lies.” – Charlie Munger
10. “The best armor of old age is a well-spent life preceding it.” – Charlie Munger
11. “The big money is not buying and selling. But in the waiting.” – Charlie Munger
12. “I would argue that passion is more important than brainpower.” – Charlie Munger
13. “You must value the business in order for you to value the stock.” – Charlie Munger
14. “When you borrow a man’s car, always return it with a tank of gas.” – Charlie Munger
15. “Very-high-IQ people can be completely useless. And many of them are.” – Charlie Munger
16. “We have three baskets for investing: yes, no, and too tough to understand.” – Charlie Munger
17. “A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.” – Charlie Munger
18. “Someone will always be getting richer faster than you. This is not a tragedy.” – Charlie Munger
19. “Almost all good businesses engage in pain today to gain tomorrow’s activities.” – Charlie Munger
20. “A majority of life’s errors are caused by forgetting what one is really trying to do.” – Charlie Munger
21. “The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more.” –Â Charlie Munger
22. “Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward.” – Charlie Munger
23. “No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.” – Charlie Munger
24. “In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.” – Charlie Munger
25. “Being smart and doing something that no one has done before are two different things.” – Charlie Munger
26. “My habit of committing far more time to learn and thinking than to doing is no accident.” – Charlie Munger
27. “Assume life will be really tough, and then ask if you can handle it. If the answer is yes, you’ve won.” – Charlie Munger
28. “You don’t have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long time.” – Charlie Munger
29. “Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets and can be lost in a heartbeat.” – Charlie Munger
30. “You don’t have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long time.” – Charlie Munger
31. “The iron rule of nature is: you get what you reward for. If you want ants to come, you put sugar on the floor.” – Charlie Munger
32. “You must force yourself to consider opposing arguments. Especially when they challenge your best-loved ideas.” – Charlie Munger
33. “I think that one should recognize reality even when one doesn’t like it; indeed, especially when one doesn’t like it.” – Charlie Munger
34. “I try to get rid of people who always confidently answer questions about which they don’t have any real knowledge.” – Charlie Munger
35. “In my whole life, I have known no wise people over a broad subject matter area who didn’t read all the time. None. Zero.” – Charlie Munger
36. “Instead of looking for success, make a list of how to fail instead. Tell me where I’m going to die, that is, so I don’t go there.” – Charlie Munger
37. “It takes character to sit with all that cash and to do nothing. I didn’t get top where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.” – Charlie Munger
38. “If you always tell people why they’ll understand it better, they’ll consider it more important, and they’ll be more likely to comply.” – Charlie Munger
39. “We just keep our heads down and handle the headwinds and tailwinds as best we can, and take the result after a period of years.” – Charlie Munger
40. “Invest in a business any fool can run because someday a fool will. If it won’t stand a little mismanagement, it’s not much of a business.” – Charlie Munger
41. “Our game is to recognize a big idea when it comes along when one doesn’t come along very often. Opportunity comes to the prepared mind.” – Charlie Munger
42. “To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people.” – Charlie Munger
43. “You’ll do better if you have a passion for something in which you have the aptitude. If Warren Buffett had gone into ballet, no one would have heard of him.” – Charlie Munger
44. “I think track records are very important. If you start trying to have a perfect one in a simple thing like honesty, you’re well on your way to success in this world.” – Charlie Munger
45. “Move only when you have an advantage. It’s very basic. You have to understand the odds and have the discipline to bet only when the odds are in your favor.” – Charlie Munger
46. “When any guy offers you a chance to earn lots of money without risk, don’t listen to the rest of his sentence. Follow this, and you’ll save yourself a lot of misery.” – Charlie Munger
47. “We’re emphasizing the knowable by predicting how certain people and companies will swim against the current. We’re not predicting the fluctuation in the current.” – Charlie Munger
48. “We both, Warren Buffett and I insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think.” – Charlie Munger
49. “Three rules for a career: 1. Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself; 2. Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire; and 3. Work only with people you enjoy.” – Charlie Munger
50. “I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody’s that smart.” – Charlie Munger
51. “The difference between a good business and a bad business is that good business throw up one easy decision after another. The bad businesses throw up painful decisions time after time.” – Charlie Munger
52. “Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.” – Charlie Munger
53. “It is really useful to be reminded of your errors. I think Warren Buffett and I are pretty good at that. We do kind of mentally rub our own noses in our own mistakes. And that is a very good mental habit.” – Charlie Munger
54. “Obviously if you want to get good at something which is competitive, you have to think about it and practice a lot. You have to keep learning because the world keeps changing and competitors keep learning.” – Charlie Munger
55. “Part of what you must learn is how to handle mistakes and new facts that change the odds. Life, in part, is like a poker game, wherein you have to learn to quit sometimes when holding a much-loved hand.” – Charlie Munger
56. “We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.” – Charlie Munger
57. “Generally speaking, envy, resentment, revenge, and self-pity are disastrous modes of thought. Self-pity gets fairly close to paranoia, and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse. You do not want to drift into self-pity. Self-pity will not improve the situation.” – Charlie Munger