To be a highly successful leader in war four things are essential, assuming that you possess good common sense, have studied your profession and are physically strong.

When conditions are difficult, the command is depressed and everyone seems critical and pessimistic, you must be especially cheerful and optimistic.

When evening comes and all are exhausted, hungry and possibly dispirited, particularly in unfavorable weather at the end of a march or in battle, you must put aside any thought of personal fatigue and display marked energy in looking after the comfort of your organization, inspecting your lines and preparing for tomorrow.

Make a point of extreme loyalty, in thought and deed, to your chiefs personally; and in your efforts to carry out their plans or policies, the less you approve the more energy you must direct to their accomplishment.

The more alarming and disquieting the reports received or the conditions viewed in battle, the more determined must be your attitude. Never ask for the relief of your unit and never hesitate to attack.

– George C. Marshall

Change produces information. This is something I often tell founders and CEOs when they sense that something is wrong in their companies but they can’t quite figure out what it is. Depending on what you think it might be, pick a change and see what new information you get from that. Change the organization. Change the pricing. Change the marketing message.

– Albert Wenger

The beauty of the VC business is you don’t have to be right that often, as long as you are right about something big.

– Fred Wilson

You have to strike the right balance between competency or knowledge on the one hand and gumption on the other. Too much competency and no gumption is no good. And if you don’t know your circle of competence, then too much gumption will get you killed.

But the more you know the limits to your knowledge, the more valuable gumption is.

– Charlie Munger

If you buy something because it’s undervalued, then you have to think about selling it when it approaches your calculation of its intrinsic value. That’s hard. But if you buy a few great companies, then you can sit on your ass. That’s a good thing.

We’re partial to putting out large amounts of money where we won’t have to make another decision.

– Charlie Munger

When demand for factors falls, those factors that are more elastically supplied lose the least…when the demand for factors increases, those factors that are inelastically supplied gain the most.

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We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

– Albert Einstein

Ben Franklin said: ‘I’m not moral because it’s the right thing to do – but because it’s the best policy.’ We knew early how advantageous it would be to get a reputation for doing the right thing and it’s worked out well for us. My friend Peter Kaufman, said ‘if the rascals really knew how well honor worked they would come to it.’ People make contracts with Berkshire all the time because they trust us to behave well where we have the power and they don’t. There is an old expression on this subject, which is really an expression on moral theory: ‘How nice it is to have a tyrant’s strength and how wrong it is to use it like a tyrant.’ It’s such a simple idea, but it’s a correct idea

– Charlie Munger

The only reason that one may not understand a financial statement is because the writer does not want you to understand it.

– Warren Buffett