Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger get quoted a lot, and for good reasons. They're very successful investors and businessmen and they've been around for a very long time (Munger is 95 years old and Buffett is 88). There's a lot of wisdom there so it's worth paying attention to what they say.

I've been noticing lately that many of the books I've been reading contain at least one quote from one of them. So I decided to compile a short list of quotes here that I think would be good to revisit from time to time to help guide myself when making decisions and should hopefully help others as well.

Quotes from Charlie Munger

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.

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.

People calculate too much and think too little.

I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.

You have to stick within what I call your circle of competence. You have to know what you understand and what you don’t understand. It’s not terribly important how big the circle is. But it is terribly important that you know where the perimeter is.

All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.

We’ve got great flexibility and a certain discipline in terms of not doing some foolish thing just to be active—discipline in avoiding just doing any damn thing just because you can’t stand inactivity.

Quotes from Warren Buffett

Charlie and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them.

A wise friend told me long ago, ‘If you want to get a reputation as a good businessman, be sure to get into a good business.’

You’ve gotta keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

I just sit in my office and read all day.

Would you rather be the world’s greatest lover, but have everyone think you’re the world’s worst lover? Or would you rather be the world’s worst lover but have everyone think you’re the world’s greatest lover?