Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, turns 94 on August 30. Even at that venerable age he still routinely makes financial headlines. And rightly so. His practical investment strategies have made him one of the richest men in the world with a net worth of some $137.8 billion. Buffett is obviously an authority on investing as well as aging. From BrainyQuote and other online sources, we’ve assembled a selection of the best Buffett quotes to inspire those of us who are getting older; in other words, all of us. 

24/7 Wall St. Insights

• Warren Buffett’s business advice often has application to other areas of life.
• Many of his insights are things people without money can implement to have a happier life at any age.
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Advice For Anyone

Warren Buffett’s experience is of great interest to people who hope to become wealthy themselves one day as well as those with more modest goals of simply meeting their financial obligations and setting aside a nest egg for retirement. If you’re at a stage of life where those kinds of opportunities seem mainly to have sailed, that doesn’t mean that Buffett’s wisdom holds nothing for you. At any stage of life or financial health, Buffett has ideas that can help you become the best version of yourself in your circumstances.

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 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 experience. And no doubt it is a major reason 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. Don’t feel like you have to read something heavy and meaningful, especially as you’re developing this discipline. Even young adult literature can be both relaxing and stimulating for the mind and keep you in touch with the ways young people today think. Audio books and podcasts are a great way to multitask while you’re driving or working around the house. For visual learners, watching quality documentaries can be good sources 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. The next stage of life for him 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, he 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. All of these are just temporary stalling tactics for the inevitable. Serving worthwhile causes, 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 he 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, 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. But 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 a martial art, 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.”

Buffet 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 can be 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 and shallow 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, 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 at 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 office, and no doubt even marriage proposals! If he said “yes” to everything or even paid attention to every potential opportunity his focus would be so scattered there is no way he could 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 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 sets the person 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. 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 principle all of us can implement at any level of responsibility. At the lowest level, you might remind yourself that it’s not your responsibility to monitor your neighbors’ activities or enforce community rules as long as they are not bothering you or creating a public danger. Free yourself from that self-imposed job. Maybe there are jobs around your house and yard that you could easily hire someone else to do, even a neighborhood kid, to use your time for more important pursuits. Make sure you’re clear in the family what each person’s job is, and let them do it their way without micromanaging. And at work or in volunteer positions, don’t be the first one to take on every responsibility. 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 clearly has in mind the idea of choosing favorable investments that, given enough time, will accumulate on their own without needing constant micromanagement. It’s great advice not only for investing but for other kinds of passive income generation as well. And in life in general, we can be reminded that once we get a process or habit started in our life (good or bad), it can grow much larger than we could have ever expected. 

Stay the Course!

Athletes are familiar with the concept of gaining a “second wind.” They reach a point of exhaustion and feel like giving up, but if they keep going, the body kicks into gear again and they have an extra burst of power to finish what they started. Life is like that. It’s exciting to get started out 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 for ourselves and later for our children, building a career, or investing for retirement. Think of it 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 still 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 who is further along in some skill or character trait that you hope will rub off on you. 

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. After all, who would you rather have to help you with a computer problem, a 20-year-old or an 80-year-old? 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 what 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 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.

He 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 actively managing his company and keeping 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 kick ourselves for mistakes: “Why didn’t I buy bitcoin?” “Why did I buy bitcoin?” Anyone who has experienced love has also experienced heartbreak. Time somehow seems to move more quickly the older we get and we’re astonished with how much we’ve missed. The 2006 movie Click with Adam Sandler hits this sore spot painfully.

Yet, we can waste our time and opportunities just as much 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 today, imagine what you could do with them!

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 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, the relationship may be close to ending.

As we get older, it’s time to let bygones be bygones, reconcile 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 share that in common with. You may just make a new friend or find romantic love, at any age. 

Want to send some good Buffett advice to your kids or grandkids? Forward them this article: 10 Warren Buffett Quotes Every 20-Year-Old Needs to Hear.

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