“It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn't get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.”

“If you buy a business just because it's undervalued, then you have to worry about selling it when it reaches its intrinsic value. That's hard. But if you can buy a few great companies, then you can sit on your ass. That's a good thing.”

Munger's 'sit on your ass investing' concept. The catchphrase is verifiably his (reaffirmed in his 2023 CNBC interview); this longer wording is the commonly circulated version.

“The big money is not in the buying and the selling, but in the waiting.”

Ubiquitously credited to Munger and consistent with his views, but no primary source confirms the exact words. The idea traces to Jesse Livermore ('It was always my sitting,' Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, 1923). Present as 'attributed,' not as a verified Munger original.

“I learned this trick early. They've done that experiment with the two marshmallows with the little kids... The little kids who were good at deferring the marshmallows are also the people who succeed in life. It's all deferred gratification.”

“The fact that it's so awful to grind through means that the people who want easy gratification don't come in. If it seems slow and painful to you, we kind of like it that way.”