Charles Thomas Munger (born January 1, 1924) is an American billionaire investor. He is vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett; Buffett has described Munger as his closest partner and right-hand man. Munger served as chairman of Wesco Financial Corporation from 1984 through 2011. He is also chairman of the Daily Journal Corporation, based in Los Angeles, California, and a director of Costco Wholesale Corporation.

Here is a representative selection of his observations:

o I will say this: I know no wise person who doesn’t read a lot. I suspect that you can read on the computer now and get a lot of benefit out of it, but I doubt that it’ll work as well as reading print worked for me.

o I think time and time again, in reality, psychological notions and economic notions interplay, and the man who doesn’t understand both is a damned fool.

o When someone takes their existing business and tries to transform it into something else – they fail. In technology that is often the case. Look at Kodak: it was the dominant imaging company in the world. They did fabulously during the great depression, but then wiped out the shareholders because of technological change.

o If any successes has come to me, it came because I insisted on thinking things through. That’s all I was capable of doing in life, was thinking pretty hard about trying to get the right answer, and then acting on it. I never learned to do anything else.

o It’s a real pleasure to earn the trust of your customers slowly over time by doing what’s right.It’s remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.

o I think people who multitask pay a huge price. They think they’re being extra productive, and I think when you multitask so much you don’t have time to think about anything deeply, you are giving the world an advantage you shouldn’t do, and practically everybody is drifting into that mistake.

o A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.

o The first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ’em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form.

o I’m used to people with very high IQs knowing how to recognize reality, but there’s a huge human tendency where it may be instructive to think that whatever you’re doing to succeed is all right.

o There’s more honor in investment management than in investment banking.

o People are trying to be smart – all I am trying to do is not to be idiotic, but it’s harder than most people think.

o If you’re glued together right and honorable, you will succeed. Get in there and get rid of stupidities and avoid bad people. Try teaching that to your grandchildren. The best way is by example. Fix yourself.

o If you can get really good at destroying your own wrong ideas, that is a great gift.

o There’s just a whole lot of things that aren’t going to work for you. Figure out what they are and avoid them like the plague.

o If you skillfully follow the multidisciplinary path, you will never wish to come back. It would be like cutting off your hands.

o Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Systematically you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. Nevertheless, you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day.

o At the end of the day – if you live long enough – most people get what they deserve.

It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.

o I try to get rid of people who always confidently answer questions about which they don’t have any real knowledge.

o I always say I want to know where I would die so I can never go there.”

o The iron rule of nature is: You get what you reward for. If you want ants to come, you put sugar on the floor.

o We’re just not interested in taking a substantial chance of taking a lot of very decent people back to “Go” so we can have one more zero on our net worth.

o I think Warren and I know the edge of our competency better than other people do.

o I paid no attention to the territorial boundaries of academic disciplines and I just grabbed all the big ideas that I could.

o Take a simple idea, and take it seriously.”

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To learn more about Charlie Munger‘s life and work, check out these sources.

Here is a direct link to YouTube videos featuring Munger, with a few including his best friend and long-time business partner, Warren Buffett.