[Click here to download a PDF copy]

SCOTT DERUE: As you look back on your life experience, what's the most important piece of advice that you would offer everyone in the room tonight as they look forward and into their futures?

MUNGER: Well, there are a few obvious ones; they're all ancient. Ben Franklin, marriage is just like the most important decision you have and not your business career. It'll do more for you—good or bad—than anything else and Ben Franklin had the best advice ever given on marriage. He said, "Keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut thereafter”.

It's amazing how if you just get up every morning and keep plugging and have some discipline and keep learning, and it's amazing how it works out okay. And I don't think it's wise to have an ambition to be President of the United States or a billionaire or something like that because the odds are too much against you; much better to aim low. I did not intend to get rich. I just wanted to get independent; I just overshot.