Tag: Poor Charlie’s Almanack

A biography nut

February 20th, 2025

I am a biography nut myself. And I think when you’re 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

Second time this week an Adam Smith reference has found it’s way to me.

I need to make him my friend. First up The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

Munger, Charles T.. Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. N.p., Stripe Matter Incorporated. pp37
Dealing with terrible blows

April 15th, 2024

There I think the attitude of Epictetus helps guide one to the right reaction. He thought every mischance in life, however bad, created an opportunity to learn something useful, and one’s duty was not to become immersed in self-pity but to utilize each terrible blow in a constructive fashion.
– Charlie Munger

Munger, Charles T.. Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. N.p., Stripe Matter Incorporated. pp279
Quotes from Chapter 1, Poor Charlie’s Almanac

January 6th, 2024

From his grandfather, basic principles anyone can apply:

he never forgot the sound principles taught by his grandfather: to concentrate on the task immediately in front of him and to control spending.

On choosing clients and deterring greed:

‘To this day, Charlie continues to influence the firm’s attorneys, reminding them, “You don’t need to take the last dollar” and “Choose clients as you would friends.”

Yes, Adam Smith is still relevant. How is that even a question?

I think you learn economics better if you make Adam Smith your friend.
Charlie Munger

Every page of this book has a takeaway. Could be the best thirty dollars you invest.

Munger, Charles T.. Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. N.p., Stripe Matter Incorporated. (Digital Edition)
Charlie Munger on the wisdom of inverting the question

January 3rd, 2024

What Carson did was to approach the study of how to create X by turning the question backward—that is, by studying how to create non-X. The great algebraist Jacobi had exactly the same approach as Carson and was known for his constant repetition of one phrase: “Invert, always invert.”83 It is in the nature of things, as Jacobi knew, that many hard problems are best solved only when they are addressed backward.

– Charlie Munger

It’s not only Charlie’s bits of wisdom that leave you in awe, the number and variety of thinkers Charlie Munger references in each chapter is astonishing.

In this speech alone he draws on Samuel Johnson, Cicero, Johnny Carson, Moses, Benjamin Disraelias, Croesus, Issac Newton, Epictetus…

Stripe Press’s online version of Poor Charlie’s Almanack is what digital reading should be.

More to come.

https://www.stripe.press/poor-charlies-almanack/talk-one?progress=66.79%25

Tag: Poor Charlie’s Almanack

A biography nut

Dealing with terrible blows

Quotes from Chapter 1, Poor Charlie’s Almanac

Charlie Munger on the wisdom of inverting the question