Charlie Munger (January 1, 1924 – November 28, 2023) was a renowned and legendary American investor, businessman, and philanthropist. Munger is most famous for his role as the Vice Chairman of multinational conglomerate holding company Berkshire Hathaway and right-hand man to CEO Warren Buffett.
Munger’s path ran through work, not pedigree. Raised in Omaha, he worked as a teenager in the Buffett family grocery before the war took him to the University of Michigan and then into the Army Air Corps, which trained him as a meteorologist at Caltech and posted him to Alaska. Afterward he talked his way into Harvard Law School without an undergraduate degree, graduated near the top of his class in 1948, and built a practice as a Los Angeles lawyer, co-founding the firm that still carries his name. While the law paid the bills he ran his own investment partnership, compounding steadily through the 1960s and early 1970s before winding it up. He had met Warren Buffett at an Omaha dinner in 1959, and years of long telephone calls between the two taught Buffett to pay up for quality: Munger’s firmest push was away from statistically cheap scraps and toward wonderful businesses bought at fair prices, starting with See’s Candies in 1972. He formally became Berkshire’s vice chairman in 1978, and for the rest of his life the work never really changed. He read for hours every day, argued both sides of every question, chaired the Daily Journal’s wonderfully unruly annual meetings well into his nineties, and died in November 2023, weeks short of his hundredth birthday.
Apart from Berkshire Hathaway, Munger is admired for his wit, wisdom, and sage advice. He embraced the role of a teacher and had a deep knowledge of many subjects, including investing, economics, psychology, biology, architecture, and human behavior. Like his fellow polymath hero, Benjamin Franklin, Munger is known for his many insightful sayings and aphorisms – referred to as “Mungerisms.” Munger is a proponent of continuous lifelong learning, and developing a “latticework” mental models (a full kit of tools), understanding how they interact to navigate through any issue.
Core Ideas
- Read constantly, and read widely. In his whole life he knew no wise people who did not read all the time, and he treated learning as a lifelong duty rather than a phase.
- Be a little less stupid every day. You do not have to be brilliant, only a bit wiser than yesterday, repeated for a long, long time, and disciplined about avoiding ruin along the way.
- Master what the best minds already figured out. Build your judgment on a latticework of proven models from many disciplines instead of trying to dream everything up yourself, and make friends with the eminent dead who wrote them down.
- Know the other side’s case cold. He never allowed himself an opinion until he could argue the opposing position better than the people who held it.
- Guard incentives and reputation. People do what you reward, so design rewards carefully, and remember that reputation and integrity can be lost in a heartbeat.
Charlie Munger Quotes
“Whenever you think something or some person is ruining your life, it’s you. A victimization mentality is so debilitating.”
“In my whole life, I have known no wise people … who didn’t read all the time. … You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads, at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”
USC Law School commencement address, 2007; reprinted in Poor Charlie’s Almanack
“You don’t have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long, time.”
“Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets, and can be lost in a heartbeat.”
“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Systematically you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. Nevertheless, you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day – if you live long enough – most people get what they deserve.”
“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.”
Poor Charlie’s Almanack (2005)
“The iron rule of nature is: You get what you reward for. If you want ants to come, you put sugar on the floor.”
“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.”
“I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody’s that smart.”
“The way to win is to work, work, work, work and hope to have a few insights. And you’re probably not going to be smart enough to find thousands in a lifetime. And when you get a few, you really load up. It’s just that simple.”
Charlie Munger Books
“Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger” – by Charlie Munger and edited by Peter D. Kaufman. His own voice: the speeches and talks on investing, psychology, and worldly wisdom; the book to read first.
“Damn Right: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger” – by Janet Lowe. The standard biography: the lawyer, the partnership years, and the family man behind the aphorisms.
“Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor” – by Tren Griffin. A clear tour of how he actually invested: patience, concentration, and big bets when the odds were clearly right.
You can browse all of Charlie Munger’s quotes in the SAGE QUOTE LIBRARY. For additional information, quotes, and books on similarly relevant famous individuals, please visit the SAGE PROFILES page on the site. Please also visit the SAGE BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS page for many other great reads sure to add to your worldly wisdom. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
