If we put our head in the lion’s mouth, we shouldn’t be surprised if it’s bitten off

Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of the fools, but the fools do not imitate the success of the wise

Marcus Porcius Cato

all swans are white

how could we test this statement?

we could open our eyes, and go out looking for non-white swans. If we find one swan that is not white we have disproved the statement. The more swans we find to be white, the more support the statement has. But it is not proven. One black swan and the statement is rejected.

“No number of experiments can prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong”

-albert einstein

Value is destroyed, not created, by any business that loses money over its lifetime, no matter how high its interim valuation may get.

In the end, you can’t get more out of a business between now and it’s extinction than the business makes

Warren Buffett

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is heading for, no wind is the right wind.

- Lucius Annaceus Seneca

At a press conference in 2001, when Warren Buffett was asked how he evaluated new business ideas, he said he used 4 criteria as filters:

• can i understand it? If it passes this filter,

• does it look like it has some kind of sustainable competitive advanTage? If it passes this filter,

• is thr management composed of able and honest people? If it passes this filter,

• is the price right? If it passes this filter, then we write a check

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Michelle, Cody & Reggie do Joshua Tree.

A few major opportunities, clearly recognizable as such, will usually come to one who continuously searches and waits, with a curious mind, loving 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.

Charles Munger

My conclusion from my own experiences and from much observation of other businesses is that a good managerial record (measured by economic returns) is far more a function of what business boat you get into than it is of how effectively you row (though intellegence and effort help considerably, of course, in any business, good or bad.) Some years ago I wrote: “when a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.” Nothing has since changed my point of view on that matter. 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.

Warren Buffett

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles

Ben Franklin

The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the true value of things

Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld

Using precise numbers is, in fact, foolish; working with a range of possibilities is the better approach

Warren Buffett

The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought.

Sun Tzu

He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit.

- Unknown

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we’d rather be roughly right than precisely wrong

in other words, if something is terribly important, we’ll guess at it rather than just make our judgement based on what happens to be easily countable