If you don't keep learning, other people will pass you by. Temperament alone won't do it - you need a lot of curiosity for a long, long time.

Wesco had a market capitalization of $40 million when we bought it [in the early 1970s]. It's $2 billion now. It's been a long slog to a perfectly respectable outcome - not as good as Berkshire Hathaway or Microsoft, but there's always someone in life who's done better.

I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.

Over the very long term, history shows that the chances of any business surviving in a manner agreeable to a company's owners are slim at best.