“Individuals who cannot master their emotions are ill-suited to profit from the investment process.”

In other words, the market is not a weighing machine, on which the value of each issue is recorded by an exact and impersonal mechanism, in accordance with its specific qualities.

The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.

At heart, “uncertainty” and “investing” are synonyms.

The Reservoir plan is an engineering mechanism applied to the field of economics, and in its essence it has nothing to do with democracy or any other political philosophy.

We define a bargain issue as one which, on the basis of facts established by analysis, appears to be worth considerably more that it is selling for.

The defensive (or passive) investor will place chief emphasis on the avoidance of serious mistakes or losses. His second aim will be freedom from effort, annoyance, and the need for making frequent decisions.

Even the most conservative must realize that the recent transformation of surplus from an individual to a national disaster implies a scathing indictment of our capitalist system as it has now developed.

A stock is not just a ticker symbol or an electronic blip; it is an ownership interest in an actual business, with an underlying value that does not depend on its share price.

Do not let anyone else run your business

Never buy a stock because it has gone up or sell one because it has gone down.

It is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forecasts.

It is a fact worth pondering that four centuries ago the evil of “an abundance or surplus” arose from its being kept off the market, while today the evil of surplus lies in its being thrown upon the market.

The stock market resembles a huge laundry in which institutions take in large blocks of each others washing … without rhyme or reason.

To establish the right price for a stock, the market must have adequate information, but it by no means follows that is the market has this information it will thereupon establish the right price.

The money cost of the reservoir plan literally fades into insignificance when it is compared with the financial burden which the great depression imposed on the nation.

A great company is not a great investment if you pay too much for the stock.