Even at the age of 94, legendary investor Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, continues to be a force in the financial world. From his first stock purchase at age 11 to the decades of investments to follow, Buffett’s investment acumen earned him the nickname the “Oracle of Omaha” and has made him one of the wealthiest people in the world, with a net worth of around $137.8 billion. (This is Warren Buffett’s message to any American who hopes to retire one day.)
Despite his immense wealth, however, Buffett is also known for his down-to-earth attitude and philanthropic endeavors. He has pledged to donate over 99% of his fortune to charity and has already given billions to various causes.
Here at 24/7 Wall Street, we have assembled a selection of the best Buffett quotes to help you navigate your later years and continue living your best life.
Why This Is Important
As we go through life and age, there is so much for us to learn. Like Buffet, our lives don’t stop as we get older — and this man’s insights are valuable to anyone, regardless of their financial goals or age. Whether you dream of becoming wealthy or simply want to secure your future, Buffet’s principles can help. Even if you feel like opportunities have passed you by, Buffett’s wisdom can still guide you toward a better life at any age and help you reach your full potential.
1. Become a Lifelong Learner
“The more you learn, the more you’ll earn.”
Warren Buffett said he had read every book on investing in the Omaha public library by the time he was 10. As an adult, he has spent as many as eight hours a day reading. This has helped him build a vast base of knowledge to inform his investment strategy and his relationships with people of diverse backgrounds and experiences. And no doubt this is a major part of how he has remained so clear-thinking and engaged with life at an advanced age.
How Can You Keep Learning?
Reading isn’t an activity everyone enjoys, but it is a skill that can be cultivated. You don’t need to necessarily read something heavy and meaningful, especially if you’re developing this discipline. Even young-adult literature can be relaxing and stimulating for the mind. Audiobooks and podcasts are a great way to multitask while driving or working around the house. For visual learners, watching quality documentaries can also be a good source of information. And for the really dedicated learners, enroll in a local community college class that interests you. You’ll be surprised at how affordable tuition can be there.
2. Set the Right Goals
“When I am 60, I should be attempting to achieve different personal goals than those which had priority at age 20.”
As a young man, Buffett’s priority was on education. An Omaha native, he graduated from the University of Nebraska at 19 before studying at Columbia Business School and the New York Institute of Finance. His next stage of life was to experiment with different business opportunities and partnerships, leading to his acquisition of Berkshire Hathaway, a textile manufacturer. With his business partner Charlie Munger, Buffett diversified the firm over the decades into one of the largest corporations in the world, now nearing a valuation of $1 trillion.
Nearing the end of his life, one of Buffett’s goals is to give away half of his wealth to world-changing causes, a pledge he has convinced Bill and Melinda Gates and other high-wealth individuals to join.
What Are Age-Appropriate Goals?
American culture is highly youth-oriented and undervalues the experience and skills older people can contribute. Caught up in this culture, many people engage in a futile fight against aging, whether that involves using the latest youth slang, trying to keep up in physical activities that are beyond them, or resorting to plastic surgeries.
However, all of these are just temporary stalling tactics for the inevitable. Serving worthwhile causes, exploring the world, connecting relationally with family and friends, exploring spirituality as part of a faith community, and mentoring younger people are all ways that can make better use of an older person’s time and giftedness to create a truly meaningful life.
3. Be Your Own Person
”The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.”
Buffett is famous for simple investment strategies that focus on purchasing stock in stable, reliable companies with the potential to increase in value and pay regular dividends. Rather than chasing the latest market trends, he looks for opportunities to purchase at times when other investors are panicking and selling at lower prices, then hangs on to the stock for long periods of time. To some people this strategy appears stodgy and old-fashioned, sacrificing the potential dramatic gains to be made in new technologies or experimental investment options like cryptocurrency. But in the end, Buffett has been the one laughing on his way to the bank.
Discovering You
All your life people have tried to put you into a box: telling you what to wear, how to behave, and what goals to pursue. But in the end, this might leave you feeling like a generic robot turned out by a factory, not the unique individual you are. But there’s another extreme: some people have a more independent nature and build their identity around defying authority and convention. However, this too is actually a way of being controlled by society: in this case, by defining yourself as the opposite of what society wants.
Finding your own path means evaluating your choices and deciding what is right for you. In some cases, this might mean accepting society’s urging to avoid offending others, to eat right and exercise, and to keep up with legitimate responsibilities. In other cases, your path might lead you hiking in Spain, taking up martial arts, or giving your money away to charity and joining a religious order. You do you.
4. Keep Your Own Score
“The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an inner scorecard or an outer scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an inner scorecard.”
Buffett currently ranks as the 10th richest individual in the world ($137.8 billion), with about half as much money as Elon Musk ($252.4 billion). Should he be crushed by knowing he isn’t first? In a competitive society, the attitude is all too often “second place is first loser.” It’s a ridiculous attitude to have, but it is often the result of comparing ourselves to others rather than taking pride in ourselves and understanding how far we’ve come . . . and how fortunate we are.
Competing With Yourself
Remember the board game Life? You move around the board, choosing a career, getting married, filling up your car with kids, and gaining or losing money along the way. How do you win? Have no debts, the highest net worth, and go to Millionaire Estates. A simple game, no doubt, but amazingly this is exactly how many people live their lives. We’re hugely stressed about debts, desperate to save up a million dollars for retirement, and ashamed if we can’t leave a big inheritance to our children. But who said this is “winning?”
What’s stopping us from keeping a different scorecard — one that can’t be measured by numbers on a spreadsheet? What if our inner scorecard focuses on what we’ve learned about life, how our character has grown and developed, and what kind of personal impact we are making on the people around us? You won’t win the board game Life that way. But you might win in real life that way.
5. Learn to Say “No”
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”
You can bet that over the course of his life, Warren Buffett has been hit up thousands of times with opportunities for investments, speaking engagements, charitable donations, political offices, and no doubt even marriage proposals! If he said “yes” to everything or even paid attention to every potential opportunity, his focus would be too scattered to have kept together his company, his fortune, or his sanity.
Wealthy people have layers of assistants and bureaucracy to insulate them from things that would waste their time while identifying people and causes that are worth the boss’s attention. You probably don’t have that kind of staff, so you’re going to have to learn to say “no” yourself, politely, kindly, but firmly.
The Hardest Word in the English Language
“No” can be one of the hardest words in the English language, particularly if you’re a “nice” person who doesn’t want to disappoint others. Maybe it would help to consider that saying “yes” to too many things and then not giving your best to any of them is actually worse than saying “no.”
If someone asks you to volunteer for a charitable fundraiser, for example, regardless of how they word their question, try translating it in your mind to: “Do you have enough time to volunteer for this fundraiser, give it your best, and do it better than anyone else, and do you want to do it?” If you can’t honestly answer “yes” to all four parts of that question, then it’s perfectly ok to say “no”. And this actually sets the person asking free to search for someone better suited to the job. Bonus: they’re less likely to ask you to do things in the future each time you say “no.”
6. You Can’t Do It All
“Delegation is the most important skill any manager can have.”
Buffett didn’t build his fortune alone. He built a solid foundation by reading voraciously about investing, earning formal education in business and finance, and partnering with people like Benjamin Graham and long-term associate Charlie Munger. Berkshire Hathaway has never been a one-man show; today it employs nearly 400,000 people.
And even when it comes to philanthropy, Buffett realizes that the vast scale of the world’s problems requires some of the wealthiest and sharpest people in the world to pool their resources — not just one. That’s why he partnered with Bill Gates to found the Giving Pledge in 2010, whereby billionaires promise to donate at least 50% of their fortunes to charitable causes.
What Can You Delegate?
Delegation is not just something for company managers; it’s a skill everyone can use, no matter your role. Even if you’re on an entry level, you can stop taking on unnecessary tasks. For example, you don’t have to monitor your neighbors or enforce community rules unless it’s a real problem. Free yourself from that self-imposed job. Consider hiring someone to help with chores around your house or yard, even a kid in the neighborhood. This frees up your time for more important things.
At home, clearly define everyone’s responsibilities and let them do their jobs without constantly checking up on them and micromanaging. At work or in volunteer positions, don’t be the first to volunteer for everything. Sit back and see who rises to the occasion without expecting perfection from them or you.
7. Stay Consistent
“Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill.”
In this quote, Buffett emphasizes the importance of choosing favorable investments that, given enough time, will grow on their own without requiring constant micromanaging. This principle applies not only to investing but also to other forms of passive income.
It’s great advice not only for investing but for other kinds of passive income and habits. When you begin a new process or habit (positive or negative), it often can snowball into something much larger than you could have ever expected.
Stay the Course!
Athletes are familiar with the concept of a “second wind.” They often reach a point of exhaustion and feel like giving up, but if they keep going, the body kicks into gear again, giving them an extra burst of power to finish what they started.
Life is like that. It’s exciting to get started as an adult and satisfying to look back over our successes later in life. But in those middle years, it can be a grind, whether it’s maintaining a healthy marriage, paying off college debt, building a career, or investing for retirement. But try to think of life and your activities as a marathon, not a sprint. That means establishing a sustainable work/life balance and good mental and physical health. Day by day, week by week, month by month, you’ll reach your goals.
8. Keep Good Company
“It’s better to hang out with people better than you and you’ll drift in their direction.”
Buffett has spent time with some of the most powerful people in the world: business moguls, presidents, and foreign heads of state. But at the same time, he has not lost his base in middle America. He still lives in the same Omaha house he bought in the 1950s and eats a simple daily McDonald’s breakfast. When he recommends hanging out with people “better than you,” that doesn’t necessarily mean the rich and famous. Such a person could be anyone anyone who is more skilled or further developed in a way you admire and hope to emulate.
Never Too Old for Mentors
Perhaps you’ve reached an age when everyone from the clerk in the grocery store to your doctor looks like they could be your child . . . or grandchild. But age doesn’t mean we have nothing to learn!
Younger people can have a youthful idealism that may seem naive, but it might also be the breath of hope a jaded older person needs in their life. Someone younger than you might make a good workout partner or even give you a different perspective on relationships — perhaps with your spouse, children, or grandchildren. Seek out people who are better than you in some area, no matter their age or yours.
9. Stop Looking Backwards
“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”
Like all of us, Warren Buffett can look back on many successes and failures in his life. He made his first million at the age of 32 and became a billionaire when he turned 56. He found love twice in his life, to his first wife Susan Thompson with whom he had three children, and to his second wife Astrid Menks.
Buffett also had his share of relationship problems. His first marriage ended in a long-term separation and he had a highly publicized 16-year falling-out with his son’s adopted daughter. Even at an age and level of success where he could easily retire and spend his time reminiscing about his achievements and regretting his mistakes, he continues to actively manage his company and keep up the same routines that have served him well for a lifetime.
Keeping Your Eyes on the Road
As we get older it’s easy to regret our mistakes: “Why didn’t I buy Bitcoin?” or “Why did I buy Bitcoin?” Anyone who has experienced love has also experienced heartbreak. Time also somehow seems to move more quickly the older we get and we’re astonished with how much we’ve missed.
Yet, we can waste our time and new opportunities just as much by spending too much time congratulating ourselves on past successes: our high school sports record, college diplomas, parenting wins, or a fortuitous real estate purchase. As we get older, it’s important to set new, forward-looking goals and never accept the falsehood that our best days are behind us. If you could get through all those problems and have all those successes without the knowledge and experience you have now, imagine what you can do today!
10. Invest in Love
“When you get to my age, you’ll measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. That’s the ultimate test of how you’ve lived your life. If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.”
Buffett has a deserved reputation as an investing wizard, but fewer people realize what a romantic he is. In 1949 he tried to win the heart of a girl whose boyfriend played the ukulele by learning the instrument himself. Though he lost that girl, he later used it to woo Susan Thompson, who became his first wife and mother of his three children. Investing in love is a long-term pursuit that requires a lot of emotional energy, but it can pay off in the end.
How’s Your Emotional Bank Account?
Therapists sometimes speak of an “emotional bank account” that we have with each person in our lives. Kind words, favors, and gifts can all be ways to make “deposits” of goodwill into those accounts. Arguments, neglect, or taking without reciprocating are all examples of “withdrawals.” When your “bank account” with someone reaches zero (or in the negative), the relationship may be close to ending.
As we get older, it’s time to let bygones be bygones, reconcile and make amends with people we’ve offended or have offended us, and spend quality time with those we love.
And don’t give up on finding new relationships, either. Get involved in activities you enjoy and you’ll meet people you can share your joy with. You can make a new friend or find romantic love at any age.
Want to send some good Buffett advice to your kids or grandkids? Send them this article: 10 Warren Buffett Quotes Every 20-Year-Old Needs to Hear.
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