Getting Paid for Being Right
At the 1998 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, Warren Buffett declared, Markets can do anything. If you look at the history of markets, you see everything under the sun. But we have no time frame [for doing something]. If the money piles up, then it piles up. And when we see something that makes sense, we’re […]
Victor Hugo’s Genius
The English poet William Ernest Henley wrote in The Athenaeum, a literary magazine published in London between 1828 and 1921: [Hugo’s poetry] is often no more than a grand parade, a sort of triumph, of vocables . … What is perhaps a more damning reproach than any is that his work is saturate in his […]
Charlie Munger Explains Berkshire Hathaway’s Investment in Airlines
At the 2018 Daily Journal annual meeting, Charlie Munger discussed Berkshire Hathaway’s investment in the airline industry: Well, we did change our mind. For a long time, Warren and I (painted over) the railroad because there were too many of them, and it was too competitive, and union rules were too crazy. They were lousy […]
Getting People to Change is Difficult
Marty Nemko writes in his essay “On the Difficulty of Getting People to Change” in his “How to Do Life” column at Psychology Today: What’s going on? In some cases, the person simply doesn’t have the self-discipline to habituate it. Others claim to have forgotten about it. Others say (rationalize?) that it isn’t important enough […]
Hemingway in Praise of F Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway writes in A Moveable Feast, His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it not more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged […]
Vicarious Redemption
Christopher Hitchens writes in Letters to a Young Contrarian, I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There’s no moral value […]
Steve Jobs Difficult to Work with
Ed Catmull, President and CEO of Pixar (now part of Disney) on how working with Steve Jobs was difficult. Pixar could not have survived without Steve, but more than once in those years, I wasn’t sure if we’d survive with him. Steve could be brilliant and inspirational, capable of diving deeply and intelligently into any […]
The Four Disciplines of a Sound Insurance Operation, According to Warren Buffett
From Warren Buffett’s 50th annual shareholder letter for Berkshire Hathaway: At bottom, a sound insurance operation needs to adhere to four disciplines. It must (1) understand all exposures that might cause a policy to incur losses; (2) conservatively assess the likelihood of any exposure actually causing a loss and the probable cost if it does; […]
Mindfulness and Healing
Thich Nhat Hanh in The Path of Emancipation: Talks from a 21-Day Retreat: We have to trust the power of understanding, healing, and loving within us. It is our refuge. It is the Buddha. It is the Kingdom of God existing within us. If we lose our faith and confidence in it, we lose everything. […]
Truth is Only an Instrumental Goal
Regina Rini of the Philosophy Department at York University in Toronto addresses the nature of truth: Most philosophers will tell you that truth is their goal. They want to know the truth about Knowledge or Existence or Justice. I’m sure this is—but I conjecture that ‘truth’ is only an instrumental goal. What these philosophers really […]