Charlie Munger was one of the most successful and respected...
Alex & Books 📚@AlexAndBooks_
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Mar 31, 2024
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Charlie Munger was one of the most successful and respected investors of our time.
He helped build Berkshire Hathaway into a $800 billion dollar company.
Here are 15 reading tips from the late great Munger:
1) “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.”
2) “As long as I have a book in my hand, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time.”
3) “Most books I don’t read past the first chapter. I’m not burdened by bad books.”
4) “I don’t think you can get to be a really good investor over a broad range without doing a massive amount of reading. I don’t think any one book will do it for you.”
5) "Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.”
6) "It's been my experience in life if you just keep thinking and reading you don't have to work."
7) “If it’s wisdom you are after, you are going to spend a lot of time sitting on your ass and reading.”
8) “If you get into the mental habit of relating what you’re reading to the basic structure of the underlying ideas being demonstrated, you gradually accumulate some wisdom.”
9) “Warren and I do more reading and thinking and less doing than most people in business. We do that because we like that kind of a life. But we’ve turned that quirk into a positive outcome for ourselves. We both 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.”
10) "I have always loved to sit and read. And I never knew anything that was really worth a damn that wasn’t learned in that fashion.”
11) "If you take Warren Buffett and watched him with a time clock, I would say half of all the time he spends is sitting on his ass and reading."
12) “We read a lot. I don’t know anyone who’s wise who doesn’t read a lot. But that’s not enough: You have to have a temperament to grab ideas and do sensible things. Most people don’t grab the right ideas or don’t know what to do with them.”
12) “I met the towering intellectuals in books, not in the classroom, which is natural. I can’t remember when I first read Ben Franklin. I had Thomas Jefferson over my bed at seven or eight. My family was into all that stuff, getting ahead through discipline, knowledge, and self-control.”
13) "I am a biography nut myself. And I think when you're trying to teach the great concepts that work, it helps to tie them into the lives and personalities of the people who developed them."
14) “Obviously the more hard lessons you can learn vicariously, instead of from your own terrible experiences, the better off you will be. I don’t know anyone who did it with great rapidity. Warren Buffett has become one hell of a lot better investor since the day I met him, and so have I. If we had been frozen at any given stage, with the knowledge we had, the record would have been much worse than it is. So the game is to keep learning.”
15) "That sounds funny, making friends among the eminent dead, but if you go through life making friends with the eminent dead who had the right ideas, I think it will work better in life and work better in education."
He helped build Berkshire Hathaway into a $800 billion dollar company.
Here are 15 reading tips from the late great Munger:
1) “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.”
2) “As long as I have a book in my hand, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time.”
3) “Most books I don’t read past the first chapter. I’m not burdened by bad books.”
4) “I don’t think you can get to be a really good investor over a broad range without doing a massive amount of reading. I don’t think any one book will do it for you.”
5) "Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.”
6) "It's been my experience in life if you just keep thinking and reading you don't have to work."
7) “If it’s wisdom you are after, you are going to spend a lot of time sitting on your ass and reading.”
8) “If you get into the mental habit of relating what you’re reading to the basic structure of the underlying ideas being demonstrated, you gradually accumulate some wisdom.”
9) “Warren and I do more reading and thinking and less doing than most people in business. We do that because we like that kind of a life. But we’ve turned that quirk into a positive outcome for ourselves. We both 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.”
10) "I have always loved to sit and read. And I never knew anything that was really worth a damn that wasn’t learned in that fashion.”
11) "If you take Warren Buffett and watched him with a time clock, I would say half of all the time he spends is sitting on his ass and reading."
12) “We read a lot. I don’t know anyone who’s wise who doesn’t read a lot. But that’s not enough: You have to have a temperament to grab ideas and do sensible things. Most people don’t grab the right ideas or don’t know what to do with them.”
12) “I met the towering intellectuals in books, not in the classroom, which is natural. I can’t remember when I first read Ben Franklin. I had Thomas Jefferson over my bed at seven or eight. My family was into all that stuff, getting ahead through discipline, knowledge, and self-control.”
13) "I am a biography nut myself. And I think when you're trying to teach the great concepts that work, it helps to tie them into the lives and personalities of the people who developed them."
14) “Obviously the more hard lessons you can learn vicariously, instead of from your own terrible experiences, the better off you will be. I don’t know anyone who did it with great rapidity. Warren Buffett has become one hell of a lot better investor since the day I met him, and so have I. If we had been frozen at any given stage, with the knowledge we had, the record would have been much worse than it is. So the game is to keep learning.”
15) "That sounds funny, making friends among the eminent dead, but if you go through life making friends with the eminent dead who had the right ideas, I think it will work better in life and work better in education."
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Bonus: If you want to learn more about Munger and valuable business/life lessons from him...
You can read "Poor Charlie's Almanack" for free thanks to @stripepress:
stripe.press/poor-charlies-…
You can read "Poor Charlie's Almanack" for free thanks to @stripepress:
stripe.press/poor-charlies-…
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-awesome book recommendations
-insightful book summaries
-more reading tips
Join 35,000+ readers who get my weekly newsletter for free here:
alexandbooks.beehiiv.com/subscribe