Quote collection
197 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble... to give way to hope, fear and greed."
"Investing isn't about beating others at their game. It's about controlling yourself at your own game."
"Successful investing is about managing risk, not avoiding it."
"The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists."
"In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine."
"In the world of securities, courage becomes the supreme virtue after adequate knowledge and a tested judgment are at hand."
"Before you invest, you must ensure that you have realistically assessed your probability of being right and how you will react to the consequences of being wrong."
"If you are shopping for common stocks, choose them the way you would buy groceries, not the way you would buy perfume."
"The true investor... will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operation results of his companies."
"A great company is not a great investment if you pay too much for the stock."
"An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return."
"we have complaints that institutional dominance of the stock market has put 'the small investor at a disadvantage because he can't compete with the trust companies' huge resources, etc. The facts are quite the opposite. It may be that the institutions are better equipped than the individual to speculate in the market.But I am convinced that an individual investor with sound principles, and soundly advised, can do distinctly better over the long pull than large institutions."
"The chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions."
"Individuals who cannot master their emotions are ill-suited to profit from the investment process."
"No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the "margin of safety" - never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be - can you minimize your odds of error."
"The genuine investor in common stocks does not need a great equipment of brain and knowledge, but he does need some unusual qualities of character"
"Buy not on optimism, but on arithmetic."
"The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists."
"The value of any investment is, and always must be, a function of the price you pay for it."
"The investor with a portfolio of sound stocks should expect their prices to fluctuate and should neither be concerned by sizable declines nor become excited by sizable advances. He should always remember that market quotations are there for his convenience, either to be taken advantage of or to be ignored."