“Nothing important on Wall Street can be counted on to occur exactly in the same way as it happened before.”

Before you place your financial future in the hands of an adviser, it’s imperative that you find someone who not only makes you comfortable but whose honesty is beyond reproach.

It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals.

Diversification is an established tenet of conservative investment.

I am more and more impressed with the possibilities of history’s repeating itself on many different counts. You don’t get very far in Wall Street with the simple, convenient conclusion that a given level of prices is not too high.

The story of Joseph in Egypt and of the seven fat and the seven lean years has passed into the homely wisdom of the ages; but our economic thinking seems to have lost contact with so simple and basic approach to prudent management of a nations welfare.

There is something paradoxical in the fact that by establishing an export market we subject our entire domestic production to the vagaries of that market.

Traditionally the investor has been the man with patience and the courage of his convictions who would buy when the harried or disheartened speculator was selling.

Whenever the investor sold out in an upswing as soon as the top level of the previous well-recognized bull market was reached, he had a chance in the next bear market to buy back at one third (or better) below his selling price.

To achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior results is harder than it looks.

The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate.

An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return.

I am no longer an advocate of elaborate techniques of security analysis in order to find superior value opportunities.

The idea of storage as a solution of economic problems at least has the support of common sense.It is diametrically opposed to the topsy-turvy Alice-in-Wonderland reasoning that has marked so much of our depression thinking and policy.

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.

The best approach here, if at all possible, is to use supervisory and regulatory methods to restrain undue risk-taking and to make sure the system is resilient in case an asset-price bubble bursts in the future.

All economic movements, by their very nature, are motivated by crowd psychology.

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%.

If fees consume more than 1% of your assets annually, you should probably shop for another adviser.

A defensive investor can always prosper by looking patiently and calmly through the wreckage of a bear market.

The chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions.