“The function of the margin of safety is, in essence, that of rendering unnecessary an accurate estimate of the future.”

In the financial markets, hindsight is forever 20/20, but foresight is legally blind. And thus, for most investors, market timing is a practical and emotional impossibility.

… the loss of public confidence in the financial community growing out of its own conduct in recent years. I insist that more damage has been done to stock values and to the future of equities from inside Wall Street than from outside Wall Street.

It is no difficult trick to bring a great deal of energy, study, and native ability into Wall Street and to end up with losses instead of profits. These virtues, if channeled in the wrong directions, become indistinguishable from handicaps.

It must be fundamentally wrong to reduce production of food and fiber while one-third of our population is still ill fed and ill clothed.

The market is always making mountains out of molehills and exaggerating ordinary vicissitudes into major setbacks.

There is a close logical connection between the concept of a safety margin and the principle of diversification.

You must never delude yourself into thinking that you’re investing when you’re speculating.

Both a priori reasoning and experience teach us that as as these funds grow larger the geometrical rate of growth by compound interest ultimately defeats itself.

As in roulette, same is true of the stock trader, who will find that the expense of trading weights the dice heavily against him.

Thousands of people have tried, and the evidence is clear: The more you trade, the less you keep.

In security analysis the prime stress is laid upon protection against untoward events. We obtain this protection by insisting upon margins of safety, or values well in excess of the price paid.

The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.

People who invest make money for themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers. And that, in turn, is why Wall Street perennially downplays the durable virtues of investing and hypes the gaudy appeal of speculation.

We have not known a single person who has consistently or lastingly make money by thus “following the market”. We do not hesitate to declare this approach is as fallacious as it is popular.

An intelligent investor gets satisfaction from the thought that his operations are exactly opposite to those of the crowd.

It should be remembered that a decline of 50% fully offsets a preceding advance of 100%.

As long as we keep on reminding ourselves how far we have come. – We’ll be okay.

Nobody’s safe. Health insurance? That didn’t protect 1 million Americans who were financially ruined by illness or medical bills last year.

Whatever you do, don’t play it safe. Don’t do things the way they’ve always been done. Don’t try to fit the system. If you do what’s expected of you, you’ll never accomplish more than others expect.

It is respectable to have no illusions, and safe, and profitable and dull.

Risk more than others think safe.

There is nothing more important than a good, safe, secure home.

The muscles used to make a smile actually send a biochemical message to our nervous system that it is safe to relax the flight of freeze response.

Your body is meant to be the safest place for you to live.