Billionaire value investor and former CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, inspired by a quote from Walter Lippmann, said that the “father of value investing” – Benjamin Graham – was the kind of man who plants trees for other men to sit under.
“Ben Graham was much more than an author or a teacher. More than any other man besides my father, he influenced my life,” said Warren Buffett. “He was the kind of person who planted trees for others to sit under.”
Buffett invoked this old adage to describe his mentor Benjamin Graham, whose teachings convinced Buffett to say that one does not need much perfection to make it rich in the stock markets.
What was the original quote?
The original quote, if correctly preserved by the internet over the years, was by Walter Lippmann, an American author and reporter born in 1889 and popularized for creating the concept of the “Cold War”.
“Yet this corporate being, though so insignificant to our senses, binds, in the words of Burkes, man to his country with bonds which are as light as air, but as strong as iron links. That is why young men die fighting for their country, and why old men plant trees under which they will never sit,” said Walter Lippmann.
Also considered the “father of security analysis,” Benjamin Graham didn’t just teach investing; he created a framework for people to be patient, aware of the risks and grounded.
Buffett learned key lessons from Graham
In his 2018 letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett stated that Graham’s teaching claimed that he never listens to economists because there is no single economist who became super-rich by investing in securities, as he once noted.
Over the years, Buffett has praised Benjamin Graham, who was not only a good teacher, investor and mentor, but also a generous person at the same time.
“Walter Lippmann spoke of men planting trees under which other men will sit. Ben Graham was such a man,” Warren Buffett said of Graham.
Mint has previously reported that Benjamin Graham was one of a rare breed of people who achieved great success without a narrow mental activity that concentrates all efforts on a single goal. Graham’s success was a byproduct of an intellect whose breadth was quite broad.
“When I was working with him, Ben told me, ‘Don’t worry too much about making money. It will change how your wife lives, but not how you live. You and I will still wear the same clothes and eat in the same cafeteria, so relax,'” Buffett said.