"What is elementary, worldly wisdom? Well, the first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ’em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form.
You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience—both vicarious and direct—on this latticework of models."
talk was previously linked from:
http://www.ycombinator.com/munger.html
but no longer available. Spent 20 minutes just now searching for it in frustration; here it is for anyone similarly afflicted!