“We urge the beginner in security buying not to waste his efforts and his money in trying to beat the market. Let him study security values and initially test out his judgment on price versus value with the smallest possible sums.”

In the world of securities, courage becomes the supreme virtue after adequate knowledge and a tested judgment are at hand.

Never mingle your speculative and investment operations in the same account nor in any part of your thinking.

Although there are good and bad companies, there is no such thing as a good stock; there are only good stock prices, which come and go.

Real investment risk is measured not by the percent that a stock may decline in price in relation to the general market in a given period, but by the danger of a loss of quality and earnings power through economic changes or deterioration in management.

By developing your discipline and courage, you can refuse to let other people’s mood swings govern your financial destiny. In the end, how your investments behave is much less important than how you behave.

Mr. Market’s job is to provide you with prices; your job is to decide whether it is to your advantage to act on them. You no not have to trade with hime just because he constantly begs you to.

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.

You are always naked when you start writing; you are always as if you had never written anything before; you are always a beginner.

There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.