Who is Charlie Munger?
Charlie Munger is one of the greatest minds in the investment world. People who are over-awed by Warren Buffett’s fame & success might see Munger as a “sidekick”
But he is the smartest man who is known for wisdom & wit. Also, he is a billionaire investor & well-known philanthropist.
Charlie Munger has a heavy influence on Warren Buffett’s investing style & it changed from cigar butt stock investing to buying & holding high-quality blue chip companies.
Also, Charlie ran his investment firm where he produced a 19% return when the Dow Jones industrial average return was about 5% for the same period.
Warren & Charlie worked in Warren’s grandfather’s supermarket as a teenager. Warren invited Charlie to be a part of Berkshire Hathaway. Today he is the Vice chairman of this prestigious business conglomerate.
Charlie Munger quotes are known for funny & deep insight. In this article, I have bundled up Charlie Munger quotes and other books written by him.
Hope you enjoy it!
Best Charlie Munger Quotes:
- Those who keep learning will keep rising in life.
- If you keep learning all the time you have a huge advantage.
- You don’t have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long time.
- To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. That world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of people.
- The best thing a human can do is to help another human being know more.
- Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.
- The habit of committing far more time to learning and thinking than to doing is no accident.
- Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich, not because I wanted Ferrari’s -I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it.
- One of the greatest ways to avoid trouble is to keep it simple…the system often goes out of control.
- 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 intelligent.
- To this day, I have never taken a course anywhere, in chemistry, economics, psychology, or business.
- I try to get rid of people who confidently answer questions about which they don’t have any real knowledge.
- 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.
- Simplicity has a way of improving performance by enabling us to better understand what we are doing.
- You should avoid sloth and unreliability.
- Acknowledging what you don’t know is the dawning of wisdom.
- We recognized early on that smart people do very dumb things, and we wanted to know why and who so that we could avoid them.
- We have a passion for keeping things simple.
- We have three baskets for investing: yes, no, and too tough to understand.
- Live within your income and save so you can invest. Learn what you need to learn.
- A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.
- intelligent investing is value investing, acquiring more than you are paying for.
- The big money is not in buying or selling, but in the waiting.
- Mozart was the most famous composer in the world but was utterly miserable most of the time, and one of the reasons was because he always overspent his income. This was Mozart. If Mozart couldn’t get by with this kind of asinine conduct, I don’t think you should try.
- We both (Warren Buffett) 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.
- In my whole life, I have known no wise people…who didn’t read all the time –none, zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads –at how much I read…They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.
- If something is too hard, we move on to something else. What could be more simpler than that?
- Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward.
- “I think Warren and I know the edge of our competency better than other people do.”
- “Take a simple idea, and take it seriously.”
Read More: Coke stocks: 3 great investment advice from warren buffett.
Charlie Munger Books:
Most of the books mentioned were written by Charlie Munger himself, but few books he contributed to it’s writing.
- Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The wit & wisdom of Charlie T. Munger
- University of Berkshire Hathaway: 30 years of lessons learned from Warren Buffett & charlie Munger at the annual shareholder meeting (Contributor)
- The Psychology of Human Misjudgment
- On Success
- Worldly Wisdom
- The rise of Golfer – Lawyer – Fisherman Taylor Raum amid friends such as are not often found
Charlie Munger book recommendations:
- The Selfish Gene
Charlie’s Comment: “I had to read [this book] twice before I fully understood it.”
2. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
Charlie’s Comment: “One of the best business biographies I have ever read.”
3. Andrew Carnegie
Charlie Munger recommended this book in the “Poor Charlie’s Almanack” book.
4. Models of My Life
Charlie Munger recommended this book in the “Poor Charlie’s Almanack” book.
5. Ice Age
Charlie’s Comment: “Best work of science exposition and history that I’ve read in many years!”
6. Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity
Charlie’s comment: “It’s pretty hard to understand everything, but if you can’t understand it, you can always give it to a more intelligent friend.” –
7. A piece of the action
Charlie’s comment: “Most people here won’t be able to put it down.
8. The Little book of common sense investing
Charlie’s comment: “A useful contribution to fellow citizens.”
9. Benjamin Franklin
Charlie’s Comment: A book I like.
10. Outliers
Charlie’s comment: Perfectly Marvelous Book
11. Faraday, Maxwell and the electromagnetic Field
Charlie’s comment: I Just hugely enjoyed it. Couldn’t put it down.
12. A universe from Nothing
Charlie Munger recommended this book at the Daily Journal meeting in 2013
13. Benjamin Franklin – An American Life
Charlie’s comment: It’s hard to write a bad book on such an interesting subject.
14. Einstein – His Life & Universe
Charlie’s comment: I’ve read all the Einstein biographies, and this is by far the best.
15. Pride in Performance
Charlie’s comment: Will demonstrate shrewd compensation systems in a whole chain of small businesses.
16. Hard drive
Charlie’s comment: You get a feeling for what it took to write and sell software in the software revolution.
17. Getting it done
Charlie’s comment: This book is must reading for those seeking to maximize their contribution to the constructive work of the world.
18. Warren Buffett Portfolio
Charlie’s comment: Not only very well written but a considerable contribution to the synthesis of human thought on the investment process
19. The Outsiders
Charlie’s comment: Details the extraordinary success of CEOs who took a radically different approach to corporate management.
20. The Greatest trader ever
Charlie’s comment: He made a lot of money in entirely legal ways but may have created a lot of trouble for himself in the process.
21. In the Plex
Charlie’s comment: I hate to admit this because I’ve ignored high tech all my life, but I read this book. And I found it a very interesting book.
22. The Martians of science
Charlie’s comment: A hell of a book about five Hungarian physicists, driven to the United States by Hitler, who contributed much to science here.
23. The Language Instinct
Charlie’s comment: Says that human language ability is not just learned, it is deeply buried – to a considerable extent – in the genome.
24. The Years of Lyndon Johnson
Charlie’s comment: I think reading is very important for anyone who wants a view into the human condition
25. Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information
Charlie Munger recommended this book in the “Poor Charlie’s Almanack” book.
Charlie Munger’s book recommendations were sourced from various interviews, articles in Daily Journal, and poor Charlie’s Almanack book.
Charlie Munger Net worth:
Charlie Munger’s net worth is estimated to be $2.3 billion.
Most of his wealth is derived from investments in various publicly traded firms.
A few of the successful investments he made are:
Coco cola: He has been a long-time holder of Coco cola company shares.
Wells Fargo: It is one of the largest banks in the United States. Both Munger & Buffett are long-term investors in Wells Fargo.
Costco Shares: Munger has heavily invested in the discount stores & holds a little over 1.6 million shares.
Bank Of America: He has been a long-term holder in Bank of America.
US Bancorp: Again one more financial services company in his portfolio.
Few of the bank stocks are held in Charlie Munger portfolio even today.
Charlie Munger portfolio
Charlie Munger portfolio shows the love he has for banking & financial service companies.
Might be he believes in Ben Franklin quotes” Money makes Money. And the money that makes money makes more money.”
Nearly 81% percent of Charlie Munger portfolio is loaded with bank stocks.
- Wells Fargo – 41.54%
- Bank of America Corp – 40.35%
- Alibaba Group – 15.29%
- U.S Bancorp – 2.9%
Charlie Munger portfolio consists of three or four stocks only, he is comfortable with a concentrated portfolio & he doesn’t like the idea of well diversified portfolio.
Takeaway:
Charlie Munger quotes are amusing to read, but if you practice what you read. Then you will be in height.
Both Munger & Buffett made significant money in their investment lifespan by simply avoiding mistakes rather than being intelligent.
I believe these Charlie Munger quotes & his books would add value to your life.
Thank you for reading!
