Gold is often described by many as the “barbarous relic” of the past. It’s a favourite phrase of gold-bashers everywhere trying to make gold the object of derision. Even legendary investor Warren Buffett criticized gold this way: "It gets dug out of the ground in Africa or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head." Gold not only doesn't earn you interest, you even need to pay storage cost for your gold. Furthermore, many speculators got burnt speculating gold. The long-term total returns of gold are not that fantastic and therefore should have discouraged most investors.

Indeed, gold is one of those investments that attracts extreme viewpoints. Are there still good enough reasons to include gold as part of your investment portfolio? Or should you just forget about investing in gold altogether and focus on other investment vehicles instead?

Whenever I hear Warren Buffett speaks or read his annual letters to the shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway, there are always words of wisdom to be found. After all, he is the Oracle of Omaha, one of the most successful businessmen of the 20th century, and consistently rated as one of the wealthiest people in the world.

Warren Buffett has continually shared bits and pieces of his investment philosophy through a lifetime of memorable quotes where he uses simple, jargon-free language when referring to business and investments. There's much to learn from the quotes and quips by the legendary billionaire investor, which have exerted great influence over my own investment strategies as well. In this blog post, I have compiled 20 of the best insightful quotes from Warren Buffett.

Recently, I was going through my financial statements and realized that in 2011, I incurred expenses of more than $1 million dollars in cash within 11 months! Now, you must be wondering whether I had been jet-setting around the world, purchased a sparkling new Lamborghini, or bought an exotic holiday home. No, no, no, I did none of these!  I spent the money on another 3 new investment properties to expand my property portfolio instead.

Am I crazy? Well, I didn’t regret my decision as all the 3 properties have appreciated in value since with a combined value in excess of $2.85 million. What’s more, the additional properties have been generating good rental yields for me since 2011. Would you call anyone crazy if he or she spends a million today for an asset that brings you cash flow and could increase significantly in value in the future? You probably would invest every cent that you have on that asset, wouldn’t you? However, no one has a crystal ball to tell if a property would rise in value or would fetch good rental returns in the future. The truth is that many people get burnt in buying investment properties. Really, most people don’t make it in real estate investing. They don’t succeed in making money out of their properties as they are not doing the things that should be done, and the reason is they don’t know what should be done in the first place!