Opportunity Cost Quotes

• Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs.

  Charlie Munger

  Intelligent, Opportunity, People

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• The dream is free...but the journey will cost you something.

  John C. Maxwell

  Dream, Journey, Cost

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• In economics, one of the most important concepts is 'opportunity cost' - the idea that once you spend your money on something, you can't spend it again on something else.

  Malcolm Turnbull

  Opportunity, Ideas, Important

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• There's no such thing as a free lunch.

  Milton Friedman

  Lunch Break, Economics, Ecological Crisis

  1973 Lecture. The phrase is thought to have been coined anonymously, perhaps referring to the 19c US tradition of supplying food in bars to patrons buying drinks.

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• Money is all about opportunity cost. Every time you spend on something, that's something you can't spend on something else.

  Dan Ariely

  Opportunity, Cost

  "Mental depletion complicates financial decisions for the poor". Interview with Kristen Doerer, www.pbs.org. January 19, 2016.

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• For all great innovations, someone took a risk. They risked capital; they risked their energy; they risked their opportunity cost; and more important, they risked failure. We can't innovate without the belief that we can succeed, the confidence that others will be there to help us on the journey, and the security that we will not be punished if we fail to reach our goal. A fast-moving world demands innovation for long-term success.

  Dov Seidman

  Confidence, Moving, Opportunity

  Dov Seidman (2011). “How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything”, p.168, John Wiley & Sons

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• There’s an opportunity cost to everything.

  Julie B. Beck

  Opportunity, Cost

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• Opportunity cost is a huge filter in life. If you've got two suitors who are really eager to have you and one is way the hell better than the other, you do not have to spend much time with the other. And that's the way we filter out buying opportunities.

  Charlie Munger

  Opportunity, Two, Filters

  "Afternoon Session - 1997 Meeting". buffett.cnbc.com. May 5, 1997.

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• There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Philosophy, Lunch, Political

  The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress ch. 11 (1966).

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• The problem with opportunity cost is that opportunity cost is divided among many, many things.

  Dan Ariely

  Opportunity, Cost, Problem

  "Mental depletion complicates financial decisions for the poor". Interview with Kristen Doerer, www.pbs.org. January 19, 2016.

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• Money is very difficult to think about. So, we think about money as the opportunity cost of money. So, we at some point went to a Toyota dealership and we asked people, what will you not be able to do in the future if you bought this Toyota? Now, you would expect people to have an answer. But people were kind of shocked by the question. They never thought about it before. So, the most we got was people said, "Well, if I can't buy this Toyota, if I buy this Toyota, I can't buy a Honda." What is this thing? What is this value of price? Very hard to think about it.

  Dan Ariely

  Opportunity, Thinking, People

  Source: bigthink.com

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• It is the good fortune of the affluent country that the opportunity cost of economic discussion is low and hence it can afford all kinds.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Country, Opportunity, Cost

  1971 Economics, Peace, and Laughter.

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• We're guessing at our future opportunity cost. Warrenis guessing that he'll have the opportunity to put capital out at high rates of return, so he's not willing to put it out at less than 10% now. But if we knew interest rates would stay at 1%, we'd change. Our hurdles reflect our estimate of future opportunity costs.

  Charlie Munger

  Opportunity, Cost, Guessing

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• After nearly making a terrible mistake not buying See's, we've made this mistake many times. We are apparently slow learners. These opportunity costs don't show up on financial statements, but have cost us many billions.

  Charlie Munger

  Mistake, Opportunity, Cost

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• Finding a single investment that will return 20% per year for 40 years tends to happen only in dreamland. In the real world, you uncover an opportunity, and then you compare other opportunities with that. And you only invest in the most attractive opportunities. That's your opportunity cost. That's what you learn in freshman economics. The game hasn't changed at all. That's why Modern Portfolio Theory is so asinine.

  Charlie Munger

  Real, Opportunity, Years

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• Be sure that you are well compensated for illiquidity - especially illiquidity without control - because it can create particularly high opportunity costs.

  Seth Klarman

  Opportunity, Cost, Wells

  "The 20 Forgotten Lessons Of 2008". Seth Klarman's annual letter, www.businessinsider.com. April 28, 2010.

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• The most interesting biofuel efforts avoid using land that's expensive and has high opportunity costs. They do this by getting onto other types of land, or taking advantage of byproducts that aren't used in the food chain today, or by intercropping.

  Bill Gates

  Opportunity, Land, Interesting

  "Q&A: Bill Gates on the World’s Energy Crisis". Interview with Chris Anderson, www.wired.com. June 20, 2011.

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• Money are very difficult to think about. So, we think about money as the opportunity cost of money. So, we at some point went to a Toyota dealership and we asked people, what will you not be able to do in the future if you bought this Toyota?

  Dan Ariely

  Opportunity, Thinking, People

  "A conversation with Dan Ariely, Author of Predictably Irrational". Big Think interview, bigthink.com.

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• Traditionally women have been more reticent to acknowledge their ambition and to say it with pride. So I like having people who work for us who are ambitious, engaged, respectful. Mis-hiring is a huge mistake. It's a tremendous opportunity cost throwing the position to the wrong person.

  Ivanka Trump

  Mistake, Ambition, Pride

  "Ivanka Trump describes her life as the daughter of a potential US president, running the Trump empire, and building her own brand". Interview With Rachel Gillett, uk.businessinsider.com. March 17, 2016.

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• But the macro-economy is not the Whole. It too is a Part, a part of the larger natural economy, the ecosphere, and its growth does inflict opportunity costs on the finite Whole that must be counted.

  Herman E. Daly

  Opportunity, Growth, Doe

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• Sure, you can choose the safety and predictability of the cage, forfeiting the adventure God has destined for you. But you won't be the only one missing out or losing out. When you lack the courage to chase the Wild Goose, the opportunity costs are staggering. Who might not hear about the love of God if you don't seize the opportunity to tell them? Who might be stuck in poverty, stuck in ignorance, stuck in pain if you're not there to help free them? Where might the advance of God's kingdom in the world stall out because you weren't there on the front lines?

  Mark Batterson

  Pain, Adventure, Ignorance

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• Human enhancement is now being driven by military imperatives, at least in the US, because civilian society is more conservative in its approach. It’s a missed opportunity for a society-wide push to understand and reduce our need to power the brain down for hours every day. Every hour we sleep is an hour we are not working, finding mates, or teaching our children; if sleep does not have a vital adaptive function to pay for its staggering opportunity cost, it could be ‘the greatest mistake the evolutionary process ever made’.

  Jessa Gamble

  Children, Military, Mistake

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• Obviously, consideration of costs is key, including opportunity costs. Of course capital isn't free. It's easy to figure out your cost of borrowing, but theorists went bonkers on the cost of equity capital. They say that if you're generating a 100% return on capital, then you shouldn't invest in something that generates an 80% return on capital. It's crazy.

  Charlie Munger

  Crazy, Opportunity, Keys

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