Moats Quotes

• In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable 'moats'.

  Warren Buffett

  Castles, Looks, Economic

  Warren Buffett (2009). “Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha”, p.63, John Wiley & Sons

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• I want a big house with a moat and dragons and a fort to keep people out.

  Victoria Beckham

  Dragons, People, House

  89 Copy quote

• I live in a house that was built in 1480. It has a moat around it. It is like a little baby castle.

  Bill Wyman

  Girl, Baby, House

  52 Copy quote

• To the question, What shall we do to be saved in this World? there is no other answer but this, Look to your Moat.

  George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax

  Looks, Answers, World

  8 Copy quote

• If I wish to engage, then the enemy, for all his high ramparts and deep moat, cannot avoid engagement; I attack that which he is obliged to rescue.

  Sun Tzu

  War, Enemy, Wish

  12 Copy quote

• A globalized world is by now a familiar fact of life. Building walls or moats may sound appealing, but the future belongs to those who tend to their people and then boldly engage the rest of the world, near and far.

  Jon Meacham

  Wall, People, May

  11 Copy quote

• No formula in finance tells you that the moat is 28 feet wide and 16 feet deep. That's what drives the academics crazy. They can compute standard deviations and betas, but they can't understand moats.

  Warren Buffett

  Crazy, Feet, Finance

  5 Copy quote

• This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,--This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Wall, War

  'Richard II' (1595) act 2, sc. 1, l. 40

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• It seems to me that you need a lot of courage, or a lot of something, to enter into others, into other people. We all think that everyone else lives in fortresses, in fastnesses: behind moats, behind sheer walls studded with spikes and broken glass. But in fact we inhabit much punier structures. We are, as it turns out, all jerry-built. Or not even. You can just stick your head under the flap of the tent and crawl right in. If you get the okay.

  Martin Amis

  Wall, Thinking, Glasses

  "Time's Arrow". Book by Martin Amis, www.avclub.com. September 1991.

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• How do you compete against a true fanatic? You can only try to build the best possible moat and continuously attempt to widen it.

  Charlie Munger

  Trying, Fanatics

  16 Copy quote

• Long distances used to be a moat that both insulated and isolated people from workers on the other side of the world. But every day, technology narrows that moat inch by inch. Every person in the world is on the verge of becoming both a coworker and a competitor to every one of us ... Technological change is going to reach out and sooner or later change something fundamental in your business world.

  Andy Grove

  Distance, Technology, Technological Change

  9 Copy quote

• the wealthy ... live in marble mausoleums surrounded by the suspicions and neuroses that have replaced the medieval moats which once isolated so-called aristocrats from reality.

  Elsa Maxwell

  Reality, Neurosis, Wealth

  Elsa Maxwell (1954). “R.S.V.P.: Elsa Maxwell's own story”

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• I have built a moat around myself, along with ways over that moat so that people can ask questions.

  Tim Berners-Lee

  People, Way, Built

  3 Copy quote

• If you want to get to the castle, Groceries, you've got to swim the moat.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Swim, Castles, Want

  3 Copy quote

• Since social relationships are always ambiguous, since my thought is only a unit, since my thoughts create rifts as much as they unite, since my words establish contacts by being spoken and create isolation by remaining unspoken, since an immense moat separates the subjective certitude that I have for myself from the objective reality that I represent to others, since I never stop finding myself guilty even though I feel I am innocent.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Reality, Rift, Isolation

  102 Copy quote

• You can have the most advanced and efflorescent of cultures. Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away. This is not ancient history. This is Germany 1933... Politics is the moat, the walls, beyond which lie the barbarians. Fail to keep them at bay, and everything burns.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Wall, Lying, Germany

  "Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics". Book by Charles Krauthammer, 2013).

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• Kellogg's and Campbell's moats have also shrunk due to the increased buying power of supermarkets and companies like Wal-Mart. The muscle power of Wal-Mart and Costco has increased dramatically.

  Charlie Munger

  Buying, Muscles, Company

  9 Copy quote

• Along the wide curving moat surrounding the palace, rows of cherry trees announced the end of their seasonal beauty. Some of the trees were weeping: blossoms in white and palest pink, ponderous with decreptitude, eddying on the brown water, stirred by the paddling of ducks.

  John Burnham Schwartz

  Ducks, White, Water

  John Burnham Schwartz (2009). “The Commoner”, p.148, Vintage

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• Let the space under the first storey be dark, let the water
  lap the stone posts, and vivid green slime glimmer
  upon them; let a boat be kept there.

  Denise Levertov

  Dark, Space, Water

  Denise Levertov (1967). “The Sorrow Dance: Poems”, [New York] : New Directions

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• The minorities have been confined to the city by a moat of bigotry.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Cities, Civil Rights, Minorities

  Shirley Chisholm (2010). “Unbought and Unbossed: Expanded 40th Anniversary Edition”, p.139, Take Root Media

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• The West is anxious about becoming another Africa, and it has dug deep moats in the hopes of preventing that, but it's too late: it has already become another Africa.

  Andre Naffis-Sahely

  Too Late, West, Becoming

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• When I reached Fort Binjemma, for example, where my grandfather was stationed for a while, the whole Victorian fort was decaying. Barbed wire surrounded it, spray paint on the ancient walls claimed it as private property, and the moat where my grandfather and his men had grown crops - in desperation as the siege's hunger bit - was completely overgrown with bushes and trees.

  Chris Cleave

  Wall, Men, Tree

  "'We Don't Know Our Hearts Until Life Puts Us to the Test' - Chris Cleave on 'Everyone Brave Is Forgiven'". Interview with Erin Kodicek, www.amazonbookreview.com. May 31, 2016.

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• So I sent Halt to straighten matters out. Thought it might be a good idea to give him something to keep him busy." So what's Digby got to complain about?" Rodney asked. It was obvious from his tone that he felt no sympathy for the recalcitrant commander of Barga Hold. The Baron gestured for Lady Pauline to explain. Apparently," she said,"Halt threw him into the moat.

  John Flanagan

  Ideas, Giving, Complaining

  6 Copy quote

• George W. Bush's position on illegal immigration is a perfect example of a political compromise. A true conservative would have built a border fence, dug a moat and stationed troops on the border long ago.

  Jeff Gannon

  Long Ago, Perfect, Political

  3 Copy quote

• I wonder," she said. "Does this castle have a moat?" A group of servants were busy emptying the privy buckets into the moat when they were startled by a sudden drawn-out cry. They looked up in time see a scarlet-and-gold clad figure sail out of a first-story window, turn over once and then land with an enormus splash in the dark, rancid waters. They shrugged and went back to work.

  John Flanagan

  Dark, Land, Water

  5 Copy quote