Set the record straight
Wrongly attributed to Munger
Lines the internet keeps putting in Charlie Munger's mouth that he never said. We name the real author and the source — because an archive that repeats fakes is worthless. Searching for one of these? You're in the right place; it just wasn't him.
“If you're smart you don't need it, and if you're dumb you shouldn't be using it.”
Not Munger. Actually Warren Buffett — Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission interview, 2010. On leverage / margin debt.
Constantly pinned on Munger because it travels with his "liquor, ladies, and leverage" line — but the wording is Buffett's, about margin debt.
Munger's actual line on the same idea: “There are only three ways a smart person can go broke: liquor, ladies, and leverage.”
“It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”
Not Munger. Actually Warren Buffett — his 1989 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter. On quality vs. price.
Buffett wrote this in 1989 — and in the very same breath credited the insight to Munger: "Charlie understood this early; I was a slow learner." So the idea is genuinely Munger's; the words are Buffett's. That double origin is exactly why it ends up on Munger quote lists.
Munger's own version: “A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.”
“Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.”
Not Munger. Actually Warren Buffett — the one-line form of his 1993 Berkshire Hathaway letter. On diversification.
Buffett's point, from his 1993 letter: for a "know-something investor," broad diversification makes no sense. It gets handed to Munger because the two partners spent decades jointly ridiculing over-diversification and modern portfolio theory from the same stage.
Munger's actual line on diversification: “You don't need all this damn diversification. You're lucky if you've got four good assets. … If you're trying to do better than average, you're lucky if you have four things to buy. And to ask for 20 is really asking for egg in your beer.”
“You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.”
Not Munger. Actually Benjamin Graham — The Intelligent Investor (1949), ch. 20. On independent thinking.
Graham's line, from the "Margin of Safety" chapter — the counsel he gave his student Warren Buffett. It drifts to Munger because Munger preached the same independence, in his own words, for the rest of his life.
Munger on the folly of the crowd: “If you don't work hard at trying to remain rational and you're constantly floating along caring terribly about what other people think, you're almost sure to be carried to folly by the folly of the crowd.”
“The investor's chief problem — and even his worst enemy — is likely to be himself.”
Not Munger. Actually Benjamin Graham — The Intelligent Investor (1949), introduction. On emotional discipline.
Graham's line — he follows it with a Shakespeare riff: "The fault, dear investor, is not in our stars — and not in our stocks — but in ourselves." Munger and Buffett, his students, hammered the same "your own worst enemy" psychology, so it gets pinned on them.
Munger on mastering your own reactions: “Conduct your life so you can handle a 50% decline with aplomb and grace. Don't try to avoid it. It will come. In fact, if it doesn't come, I would say you're not being aggressive enough.”
“If the job has been correctly done when a common stock is purchased, the time to sell it is — almost never.”
Not Munger. Actually Philip A. Fisher — Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits (1958), ch. 6. On when to sell.
The closing line of Fisher's chapter on selling. It gets grouped with Munger because Fisher's buy-and-hold thinking directly shaped Munger's (and Buffett's) "our favorite holding period is forever."
Munger on sitting tight: “There are huge advantages for an individual to get into a position where you make a few great investments and just sit back and wait: You're paying less to brokers. You're listening to less nonsense.”
He made them famous — but he was quoting someone
Some of the most “Munger” lines aren’t original to Munger. He was a magpie for other people’s wisdom and said so — crediting a mathematician, a founding father, an Athenian orator, a nameless farmer. We keep the lines, because they’re his to say, and we name where they came from. That isn’t a demotion; borrowing well was the whole method.
“Invert, always invert.”
Munger made it famous — but it’s borrowed. From Carl Jacobi — the mathematician's maxim "man muss immer umkehren" ("one must always invert"). On inversion.
About as Munger as a line gets — but he always credited the 19th-century mathematician Carl Jacobi. Munger turned Jacobi's dictum into a thinking tool: to crack a hard problem, study how it fails, then avoid that. He kept it; he never claimed to coin it.
“All I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there.”
Munger made it famous — but it’s borrowed. From an unnamed farmer — Munger told it as a country saying; it titles Peter Bevelin's 2016 book on Buffett & Munger. On inversion.
Pure Munger in spirit — and he made it famous — but he always framed it as a rustic's line, not his own coinage. It's his favorite illustration of inversion: to live well, catalog the ways life goes wrong and steer clear of them.
“If you would persuade, appeal to interest and not to reason.”
Munger made it famous — but it’s borrowed. From Benjamin Franklin — Poor Richard's Almanack (1734), first written as "Would you persuade, speak of Interest, not of Reason". On incentives.
Munger made this the spine of his incentives argument in "The Psychology of Human Misjudgment" — and credited Franklin every time. The line is Franklin's, from Poor Richard's Almanack; Munger's contribution was building a whole discipline of incentive-analysis on top of it.
The Munger creed it seeded: “Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.”
“For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.”
Munger made it famous — but it’s borrowed. From Demosthenes — Third Olynthiac (c. 349 BC), on self-deceit. On self-deception.
Munger reached for this on denial and incentive-caused bias — and said "Quoting Demosthenes…" when he did (Stanford, 2002). The words are the Athenian orator's, from the Third Olynthiac; quote sites keep the line and drop the credit Munger himself gave.
Munger on countering the bias: “The best antidote to folly from an excess of self-regard is to force yourself to be more objective when you are thinking about yourself, your family and friends, your property, and the value of your past and future activity.”
“It is not greed that drives the world, but envy.”
Munger made it famous — but it’s borrowed. From Warren Buffett — Munger crediting Buffett in Poor Charlie's Almanack. On envy.
Munger quoted this so often it reads as his — but he explicitly and repeatedly credited Warren Buffett: “I have heard him wisely say on several occasions, ‘It is not greed that drives the world but envy.’” The insight is Buffett's; Munger made it famous.
Different kind of confusion — where Munger seems to contradict himself (levering up while preaching against it, concentrating while telling you to index)? We explain those too — as well as the investments he got wrong.
Spotted another quote wrongly credited to Munger? Tell us at hello@mungerarchive.com and we'll trace it.