Poor Charlie’s Almanack (Primary source)
In the tradition of Benjamin Franklin’s own almanack, Poor Charlie’s Almanack stands as a remarkable distillation of one man’s lifelong pursuit of what he termed elementary worldly wisdom. Compiled with evident devotion by Peter Kaufman and first published in 2005, this volume represents the most comprehensive gathering of Charles Munger’s speeches, insights, and philosophical observations spanning two decades of public discourse.
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“Our experience tends to confirm a long-held notion that being prepared, on a few occasions in a lifetime, to act promptly in scale, in doing some simple and logical thing, will often dramatically improve the financial results of that lifetime.
A few major opportunities, clearly recognizable as such, will usually come to one who continuously searches and waits, with a curious mind that loves diagnosis involving multiple variables.
And then all that is required is a willingness to bet heavily when the odds are extremely favorable, using resources available as a result of prudence and patience in the past.”
Charlie Munger
“So you have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. And that’s as close to certain as any prediction you can make. You have to figure out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve got to play within your own circle of competence.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter) who didn’t read all the time—none, zero. You’d be amazed how much Warren reads—and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“If anything, I now believe even more strongly that reliability is essential for progress in life and while quantum mechanics is unlearnable for a vast majority, reliability can be learned to great advantage by almost anyone.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“Invert, always invert”
— Charlie Munger Primary sourceMore quotes by Charlie Munger →
“Our game is recognize a big idea when it comes along, when one doesn’t come along very often. Opportunity comes to the prepared mind.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“In the field of observations, chance favors only the prepared mind.”
— Louis Pasteur Primary source“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
— Henry David Thoreau Primary source“So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary sourceInvestment Concentration Focus