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The intelligent investor shouldn’t ignore Mr. Market entirely. Instead, you should do business with him- but only to the extent that it serves your interests.

Benjamin Graham

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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Effort Loss Mistakes
Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business do not translate into obvious profits for investors.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Growth Investing Profit
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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Emotional Forever Investing
Unusually rapid growth cannot keep up forever; when a company has already registered a brilliant expansion, its very increase in size makes a repetition of its achievement more difficult.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Achievement Forever Growth
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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Beginner Effort Trying
The intelligent investor is likely to need considerable will power to keep from following the crowd.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Crowd Following Intelligent Needs
Stocks can be dynamite.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Dynamite Progressive Stock
The money cost of the reservoir plan literally fades into insignificance when it is compared with the financial burden which the great depression imposed on the nation.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Cost Depression Financial Great
An intelligent investor gets satisfaction from the thought that his operations are exactly opposite to those of the crowd.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Opposites
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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Different Simple Wall
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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Bad Company Good Investing Price Stock
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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Hands Honesty Investing
Buy not on optimism, but on arithmetic.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Optimism
Experience teaches that the time to buy stocks is when their price is unduly depressed by temporary adversity. In other words, they should be bought on a bargain basis or not at all.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Adversity Should Teach
It is a fact worth pondering that four centuries ago the evil of “an abundance or surplus” arose from its being kept off the market, while today the evil of surplus lies in its being thrown upon the market.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Evil Four Lying
The world has not learned the technique of balanced expansion without the resultant commercial and financial congestion.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Expansion Technique World
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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Events Safety Stress
The qualitative factors upon which most stress is laid are the nature of the business and the character of the management. These elements are exceedingly important, but they are also exceedingly difficult to deal with intelligently.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Character Important Stress
Successful investing is about managing risk, not avoiding it.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Risk Successful
High valuations entail high risks.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Risk Valuation
Diversification is an established tenet of conservative investment.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Conservative Investing Investment
To enjoy a reasonable chance for continued better than average results, the investor must follow policies which are (1) inherently sound and promising, and (2) not popular on Wall Street.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Average Sound Wall
Avoid second-quality issues in making up a portfolio unless they are demonstrable bargains.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Issues Portfolios Quality
Wall Street has a few prudent principles; the trouble is that they are always forgotten when they are most needed.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Principles Wall
Buy when most people, including experts, are pessimistic, and sell when they are actively optimistic.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Experts Optimistic People
By refusing to pay too much for an investment, you minimize the chances that your wealth will ever disappear or suddenly be destroyed.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

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

Firsts May Ownership

The intelligent investor shouldn’t ignore Mr. Market entirely. Instead, you should do business with him- but only to the extent that it serves your interests.

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The intelligent investor shouldn’t ignore Mr. Market entirely. Instead, you should do business with him- but only to the extent that it serves your interests.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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