“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.”
— Charlie Munger(USC法学院毕业演讲,2007)
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“反过来想,总是反过来想。把问题或情况颠倒过来。从反面看它。”
“Invert, always invert. Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward.”
— Charlie Munger(1996年斯坦福法学院演讲《Practical Thought》;语出Jacobi)
How can smart people go wrong in a way that wrecks their lives? I can give you four or five prescriptions that will guarantee you a life of misery — drug abuse, envy, resentment...
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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“在手里拿着铁锤的人看来,每个问题都像钉子。这是一种处理问题时愚蠢的方法。”
“To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Its a terrible way to go through life.”
“There are also disadvantages of scale that are enormous. As things get big, you get bureaucracy. And with bureaucracy comes all sorts of terrible things — turf wars, redundant layers, resistance to change.”
— Charlie Munger(1994 年 USC 商学院“世界智慧”演讲)
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“广泛分散是对无知的保护。如果你知道自己在做什么,它就没有什么道理了。”
“Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what theyre doing.”
The concept of economies of scale is very important. For example, all of the worlds business schools teach one thing: that a great advantage of scale is that you get cost reductions… But there are also disadvantages of scale. As you get big, you get the bureaucracy.
Most acquisitions destroy value for the acquirers shareholders. CEOs, egged on by Wall Street bankers and bewitched by the illusion of synergies, pay premiums far above rational prices.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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承认自己的无知是智慧的开端。
Acknowledging what you dont know is the dawning of wisdom.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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“我们从不试图预测市场——我们只是试图在价格远低于价值时买入,然后等待。”
“We never try to predict the market. We just try to buy when the price is far below the value and then wait.”
If you dont get this elementary, but mildly unnatural, mathematics of elementary probability into your repertoire, then you go through a long life like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.
— 转述(据1994年USC商学院演讲相关论述整理)
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“你必须知道那些重要的模型,然后把你的经验——无论是直接经验还是间接经验——挂到这个模型格栅上。”
“Youve got to have models in your head. And youve got to array your experience — both vicarious and direct — on this latticework of models.”
— Charlie Munger(1994年USC演讲《A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom》)
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“告诉我我会死在哪里,我就不去那里。”
“All I want to know is where Im going to die, so Ill never go there.”
— Charlie Munger(Berkshire Hathaway 股东信,1996)
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“理解复利的力量和获取它的困难是理解很多事情的核心和灵魂。”
“Understanding both the power of compound return and the difficulty of getting it is the heart and soul of understanding a lot of things.”
The psychology textbooks, while theyve made some useful progress, have a long way to go before theyre going to properly teach the main lesson: that the combination of tendencies creates extreme consequences.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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我们经营伯克希尔的方式——一张值得信赖的无缝之网——比你在任何商学院课本里读到的都管用。
The way we run Berkshire — a seamless web of deserved trust — works better than anything youll read about in any business school textbook.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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18
“聪明的人在获胜概率很大时下重注,在其余时间则不下注。”
“The wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time, they dont.”
“Another advantage of scale comes from psychology. The psychologists use the term social proof. We are all influenced — subconsciously and to some extent consciously — by what we see others do and approve. So if everybodys buying something, we think its better. We dont like to be the odd man out.”
“If you took our top fifteen decisions out, wed have a pretty average record. It wasnt about how many decisions we made, but about getting a few right — and betting big on them.”
— Charlie Munger(2004 年 WESCO 股东大会记录)
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复式记账法是人类文明最伟大的成就之一。它具有不可忽视的美感。
Double-entry bookkeeping was one of the great achievements of civilization. It has an unappreciated elegance.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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你必须懂会计。它是商业生活的语言。它是人类文明的一项非常有用的发明。
You have to know accounting. Its the language of practical business life. It was a very useful thing to deliver to civilization.
There are two types of goodwill. Accounting goodwill — the premium recorded on the balance sheet from acquisitions. And economic goodwill — the excess earning power a business has due to brand loyalty, customer captivity, and similar advantages. The difference between the two can be enormous.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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“在我的一生中,我认识的所有智慧的人——不管在哪个领域——都在不停地阅读。没有例外。”
“In my whole life, I have known no wise people — over a broad subject matter area — who didnt read all the time. None. Zero.”
— Charlie Munger(Wesco 2003年会)
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“如果你想说服别人,诉诸利益,而不是诉诸理性。”——本杰明·富兰克林(芒格多次引用)
“If you would persuade, appeal to interest, not to reason.”
— Benjamin Franklin, quoted approvingly by Charlie Munger
“High income buys life satisfaction but not happiness, and low income is associated both with low life evaluation and low emotional well-being.”
— Daniel Kahneman Angus Deaton
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自怜自艾几乎不能改善任何处境。我很早就决定,在生活中我绝不自怜。这是一个了不起的决定。
The habit of self-pity is almost guaranteed to ensure misery. I had a friend who carried a thick stack of index cards. Every time somebody said something self-pitying, hed pull out a card and say, Your story has been entered into the Pity-Me Sweepstakes. Thats the way to deal with self-pity.
The sunk cost fallacy is one of the most common human misjudgments. People keep going down a path just because theyve already traveled far on it — even when it leads to a cliff.
In a complex world, independent verification is a basic discipline of the rational person. Not because you distrust others, but because you understand the limitations of human cognition.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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“你需要对事物的因果机制有强烈的兴趣。长期保持这种思维习惯,会逐步提高你聚焦于现实的能力。”
“You need to have a passionate interest in why things are happening. That cast of mind, kept over long periods, gradually improves your ability to focus on reality.”
— Charlie Munger(《Poor Charlies Almanack》)
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达尔文是最成功地化解第一结论偏见的人之一。他很早就训练自己努力考虑任何有可能证伪他的假说的证据。
Darwin is one of the best examples of how to overcome first-conclusion bias. He trained himself early to intensively consider any evidence tending to disconfirm any hypothesis of his.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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“巴菲特能够自动地根据决策树理论和排列组合原理来思考问题。”
“Warren Buffett is able to think automatically in terms of decision trees and the elementary math of permutations and combinations.”
— Charlie Munger(1994年USC商学院演讲)
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如果你想成为一个更好的思考者,你必须对自己到底懂不懂一件事有绝对诚实的判断。
To be a better thinker, you have to develop an absolutely honest assessment of what you know and what you dont know.
You must have multiple models — because if you just have one or two that youre using, the nature of human psychology is such that youll torture reality so that it fits your models.
One of the most important consequences of psychology is what I call the Lollapalooza Effect. And the Lollapalooza Effect, well, the academic psychology people havent even got a name for it... they should but they dont.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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“文明的最高形态是一张无缝的、建立在当之无愧的信任之上的网。”
“The highest form of civilization is a seamless web of deserved trust.”
It is unfortunate that Skinner is not more revered in psychology. His basic finding — operant conditioning — is one of the most important principles for understanding human and animal behavior.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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38
“规模的优势是巨大的。仅仅是采购量的优势就足以让你比竞争对手便宜很多。”
“The advantages of scale are great. Just the simple advantage of buying in quantity gives you a huge cost advantage.”
— Charlie Munger(1994 年 USC 商学院“世界智慧”演讲)
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关于两轨分析法——当你在进行分析时,要同时使用理性分析法和心理学分析法。
On the two-track analysis — when youre trying to figure something out, use both rational analysis and psychological analysis.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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我们只是试图买入那些收入来源可靠、可预测、不容易被竞争对手夺走的企业。
Were just trying to buy businesses that have reliable, predictable revenue streams that are not easily taken away by competitors.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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41
会计数字不是经济现实本身,它们只是经济现实的近似反映——而且有时候是很差的近似。
The numbers in a financial statement are not economic reality itself. They are a rough approximation of economic reality — and sometimes a very poor one.
The wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time, they dont. Its just that simple... Your opportunity cost is what you compare everything to.
We made the mistake early on of just buying bargains. We finally learned that some companies are worth paying up for because they have some special quality.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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花大量时间去预测那些不可预测的事情是在浪费时间——你应该做的是让自己在各种情况下都能活下来。
Spending lots of time trying to predict the unpredictable is a waste of time — what you should do is make sure you survive in all scenarios.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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45
人,尤其是生活在现代文明中的人,天生就有一种既拥有理由又尊重理由的强烈倾向。
Man, especially one living in a modern civilization, naturally has a strong tendency to both have and respect reasons.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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46
我认为教授道德的最好方式就是以身作则。如果你到处谈论道德但自己行为不端,道德教育就会打折扣。
I think that the best single way to teach ethics is by example. If you just go around talking about ethics but dont behave well, the ethics teaching is going to be impaired.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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47
规模的优势和劣势是你必须同时理解的。你不能只看到一面而忽略另一面。
The advantages and disadvantages of scale are something you must understand simultaneously. You cant just look at one side and ignore the other.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
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48
“在恰当的时候快速而非缓慢地摧毁自己的想法,是最有价值的能力之一。”
“The ability to destroy your ideas rapidly instead of slowly when the occasion is right is one of the most valuable things.”
— Charlie Munger(WESCO 2006年会)
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49
“在赌博中,聪明的做法是只在你有优势的时候下注。在投资中也是如此。”
“The wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time, they dont.”
— Charlie Munger(1994年USC演讲)
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“一个想法或一个事实不会仅仅因为你容易获得它而变得更有价值。”
“An idea or a fact is not worth more merely because it is easily available to you.”
— Charlie Munger(《Poor Charlies Almanack》扩展版)
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“在一个充满竞争的世界里,你需要有竞争优势。如果没有,你就不应该参与。”
“In a competitive world, you need a competitive advantage. And if you dont have one, dont compete.”
— 杰克·韦尔奇(Jack Welch)
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“安全边际这个概念,格雷厄姆的教诲,永远不会过时。”
“The idea of a margin of safety, a Graham precept, will never be obsolete.”
— Charlie Munger(WESCO 2003年会)
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53
“模仿羊群会让你回归平庸。”
“Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean.”
— Charlie Munger(《Poor Charlies Almanack》;暗示不要因为“大家都这么认为”就降低你的证据标准)
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“知道你不知道什么,比聪明更重要。”
“Knowing what you dont know is more useful than being brilliant.”
— Charlie Munger(Jason Zweig访谈,2014)
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“如果你把自己的生活局限在自己有明确优势的领域,你的生活会好得多。”
“If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you dont, youre going to lose. You have to figure out where youve got an edge.”
— Charlie Munger(A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom,1994)
“You need to figure out where your aptitude lies. If you try to succeed in what youre not good at — and other people are — youre going to lose badly. You have to figure out where youve got an edge, and then play within that edge.”
“Lets say you have the best buggy whip factory. All of a sudden, along comes a horseless carriage. Pretty soon, your buggy whip business is dead. Youve got the finest buggy whip factory, and it does you no good.”
— Charlie Munger(1994年USC演讲)
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“世上没有免费的午餐。”
“Theres no such thing as a free lunch.”
— 经济学谚语,芒格多次引用
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“大自然无法被愚弄。”
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
— Richard Feynman
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“被低对比度的微小变化误导的认知,常常会错过那些决定命运的趋势。”
“Cognition, misled by tiny changes involving low contrast, will often miss a trend that is destiny.”
— Charlie Munger(《Poor Charlies Almanack》扩展版)
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“小小纰漏,能沉大船。”
“A small leak will sink a great ship.” — Benjamin Franklin (frequently quoted by Munger)
— 本杰明·富兰克林(芒格多次引用)
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“物理学里面的临界质量概念是一种非常强大的思维模型。”
“The concept of critical mass from physics is a very powerful model.”
— Charlie Munger(1994年USC演讲《A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom》)
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“你必须掌握各学科中那些真正重要的大概念——大概只有一百来个——然后把它们变成你自己的思维习惯。”
“Youve got to have models in your head. And youve got to array your experience — both vicarious and direct — on this latticework of models.”
— Charlie Munger(1994年USC演讲《A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom》)
“The quantity of mans pleasure from a ten-dollar gain does not exactly match the quantity of his displeasure from a ten-dollar loss. That is, the loss seems to hurt much more than the gain seems to help.”
— Charlie Munger(《Poor Charlies Almanack》扩展版)
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“大致的正确好过精确的错误。”
“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.”
“The disliking/hating tendency also acts as a conditioning device that makes the disliker/hater tend to (1) ignore virtues in the object of dislike, (2) dislike people, products, and actions merely associated with the object of his dislike, and (3) distort other facts to facilitate hatred.”
“Theres a very important concept in microeconomics called competitive destruction. Big companies like Kodak and General Motors were affected by it. Sometimes new technology or new ways of doing things just destroy you.”
— Charlie Munger(1994 年 USC 商学院“世界智慧”演讲)
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“人类的大脑被设定为倾向于通过迅速做出某种决定来消除怀疑。”
“The brain of man is programmed with a tendency to quickly remove doubt by reaching some decision.”
“The four closest friends of my youth were highly intelligent, ethical, humorous men. Two are long dead, with alcohol a contributing factor to their deaths.”
— Charlie Munger(1986年哈佛演讲《How to Guarantee a Life of Misery》)
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“我发现把自由的市场经济——或者部分自由的市场经济——当做某种生态系统是很有用的思维方式。”
“I find it quite useful to think of a free market economy — or partly free market economy — as sort of the equivalent of an ecosystem.”
The idea of a margin of safety comes out of engineering. If youre building a bridge, you insist it can bear thirty thousand pounds, even though the biggest truck that will cross it weighs only ten thousand pounds. The same principle works in the investment world.
— Warren Buffett
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72
“在一个封闭系统中,熵永远不会减少——这是自然界最确定的规律之一。”
“The entropy of an isolated system never decreases — this is one of the most certain laws of nature.”
— Rudolf Clausius(热力学第二定律的最初表述者之一)
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“生命以负熵为食。”
“Life feeds on negative entropy.”
— Erwin Schrodinger,《What is Life?》
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“驱动这个世界的不是贪婪,而是妒忌。”
“It is not greed that drives the world, but envy.”
— 沃伦·巴菲特(芒格1995年演讲引用)
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“在意别人比你赚钱快这件事,是致命的罪过之一。”
“The idea of caring that someone is making money faster than you are is one of the deadly sins. Envy is a really stupid sin because its the only one you could never possibly have any fun at.”
— 沃伦·巴菲特(Wesco 2003年会;芒格引用并深表赞同)
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76
“导致某种行为的后果被第三方而非行为者本人承受的情况,我们称之为外部效应。”
“A situation in which the consequences of an action are borne by someone other than the actor is what we call an externality.”
— Arthur Pigou,《The Economics of Welfare》
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77
“在交易成本为零的世界里,资源的初始分配不影响最终的效率结果。”
“In a world of zero transaction costs, the initial allocation of resources does not affect the ultimate efficient outcome.”
— Ronald Coase,《The Problem of Social Cost》
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“如果你给一个很长的数字序列乘以零,无论前面的数字多么辉煌,最终结果都是零。”
“If you take a long series of numbers and multiply by zero, no matter how impressive the preceding numbers, the result is always zero.”
— Charlie Munger(2022年伯克希尔股东信)
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79
“你必须终身学习。如果你不持续学习,其他人会超过你。”
“You have to keep learning all the time. If you dont keep learning, other people will pass you by.”
— Charlie Munger(2022年Berkshire股东信)
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80
给我看激励机制,我就能预测结果。
Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.
— 转述(据芒格相关论述整理)
转述
81
“我们的秘诀是找到一些伟大的公司,然后坐在屁股上不动。”
“The big money is not in the buying or selling, but in the waiting.”
— Charlie Munger(《Poor Charlies Almanack》)
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82
“大钱不在买入和卖出中赚取,大钱在等待中赚取。”
“The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting.”
— Charlie Munger
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83
“找到一个简单的好主意,然后认真对待它。”
“Take a simple idea and take it seriously.”
— Charlie Munger(《Poor Charlies Almanack》)
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84
“我没什么要补充的。”
“I have nothing to add.”
— 芒格在伯克希尔股东大会上的经典回答(Wesco 2006年会笔记)
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85
“我大量阅读传记和历史。”
“I am a biography nut myself. And I think when youre trying to teach the great concepts that work, it helps to tie them into the lives and personalities of the people who developed them. I think you learn economics better if you make Adam Smith your friend.”
— Charlie Munger(《Poor Charlies Almanack》原则11)
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86
“复利是世界第八大奇迹。”
“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.”
— 出处存疑的流行格言:常被挂在爱因斯坦名下,但无原始文献证据;芒格多次引述其精神
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87
“科学的进步是一次一个葬礼。”
“Science advances one funeral at a time.”
— Max Planck,库恩在《科学革命的结构》中引用
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88
“花时间让自己每天进步一点点。”
“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day — if you live long enough — like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.”
— Charlie Munger(WESCO年会,2003)
逐字出处
89
“人们计算得太多,思考得太少。”
“People calculate too much and think too little.” — Charlie Munger
— Charlie Munger(2002年Wesco年会)
逐字出处
90
“模糊的正确远胜于精确的错误。”
“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.”
— Charlie Munger(2003年UCSB经济学演讲,灵感源自凯恩斯)
逐字出处
91
“所有技能都会因为不用而退化。”
“All skills attenuate with disuse.”
— Charlie Munger(《Poor Charlies Almanack》扩展版)
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92
“赢得信任的方式是配得上被信任。”
“The way to get trust is to deserve trust.”
— Charlie Munger(2015年Daily Journal年会)
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93
“永远别问理发师你是否需要理发。”
“Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.”
— Warren Buffett
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94
“一个人想要什么,就会相信什么。”
“What a man wishes, that also will he believe.” — Demosthenes, quoted by Munger
— 德摩斯梯尼(芒格在《Poor Charlies Almanack》扩展版中引用)
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95
“渐变中的突变是自然界最深刻的戏法。”
“The most profound trick in nature is the sudden shift within the gradual.”
— Per Bak,《How Nature Works》
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96
“只有偏执狂才能生存。”
“Only the paranoid survive.”
— Andrew Grove(本质上是对企业熵增的管理学表达)
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97
反过来想,总是反过来想。
Invert, always invert.
— Carl Jacobi(经芒格引用)
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98
“事情应该尽可能简单,但不能过于简单。”
“Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
— Albert Einstein(芒格2003年演讲《Academic Economics》引述)
逐字出处
99
“你欺骗任何人都容易,但你骗自己最容易。”
“It is easy to fool anyone, but it is easiest to fool yourself.”
— Richard Feynman(芒格1998年基金会演讲引述)
逐字出处
100
“你是对是错,并不取决于别人同意你还是反对你——唯一重要的是你的事实和推理是否正确。”
“Youre not right or wrong because people agree or disagree with you — youre right because your facts and reasoning are right.”