“Confusing speculation with investment is always a mistake.”

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.

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.