“Wall Street people learn nothing and forget everything.”

I quickly convinced myself that the true key to material happiness lay in a modest standard of living which could be achieved with little difficulty under almost all economic conditions.

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.

The intelligent investor gets interested in big growth stocks not when they are at their most popular – but when something goes wrong.

The ideal form of common stock analysis leads to a valuation of the issue which can be compared with the current price to determine whether or not the security is an attractive purchase.

Every corporate security may be best viewed, in the first instance, as an ownership interest in, or a claim against, a specific business enterprise.

The intelligent investor should recognize that market panics can create great prices for good companies and good prices for great companies.

Avoid second-quality issues in making up a portfolio unless they are demonstrable bargains.

Price fluctuations have only one significant meaning for the true investor. They provide him with an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal.

Successful investing professionals are disciplined and consistent and they think a great deal about what they do and how they do it.

Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.

Buy not on optimism, but on arithmetic.

To have a true investment, there must be a true margin of safety. And a true margin of safety is one that can be demonstrated by figures, by persuasive reasoning, and by reference to a body of actual experience.

The investor who permits himself to be stampeded or unduly worried by unjustified market declines in his holdings is perversely transforming his basic advantage into a basic disadvantage.

The Reservoir system will function not only as an equalizer of business conditions, but also as a national store to meet further emergencies, such as war and drought, and-most important of all-as the concrete means of developing a steadily higher living standard for all.

High valuations entail high risks.

Most businesses change in character and quality over the years, sometimes for the better, perhaps more often for the worse. The investor need not watch his companies’ performance like a hawk; but he should give it a good, hard look from time to time.

When you paint, you forget everything except your object. When you are too much engrossed in it, you are lost in it. And when you are lost in it, your ego diminishes. And when the ego diminishes, love infinite appears.