“Thus the important and difficult part of sound investment, which hinges upon the investor’s own temperament and attitude, is not much affected by the passing years.”

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.

A great company is not a great investment if you pay too much for the stock.

An investor calculates what a stock is worth, based on the value of its businesses.

The only thing you should do with pro forma earnings is ignore them.

Investing is most intelligent when it is most businesslike.

Intelligent investment is more a matter of mental approach than it is of technique. A sound mental approach toward stock fluctuations is the touchstone of all successful investment under present-day conditions.

There is no reason to feel any shame in hiring someone to pick stocks or mutual funds for you. But there’s one responsibility that you must never delegate. You, and no one but you, must investigate whether an adviser is trustworthy and charges reasonable fees.

When somebody asserts that a stock has an earning power of so much, I am sure that the person who hears him doesn’t know what he means, and there is a good chance that the man who uses it doesn’t know what it means.

Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of Safety.

Even defensive portfolios should be changed from time to time, especially if the securities purchased have an apparently excessive advance and can be replaced by issues much more reasonable priced.

The purpose of this book is to supply, in the form suitable for laymen, guidance in the adoption and execution of an investment policy.

The investor’s chief problem – and even his worst enemy – is likely to be himself.

Always buy your straw hats in the Winter

Those with the enterprise lack the money and those with the money lack the enterprise to buy stocks when they are cheap.

The beauty of periodic rebalancing is that it forces you to base your investing decisions on a simple, objective standard.

The people of the United States will not tolerate another deep depression that arises not from any lack of natural resources, productive capacity or man and brain power, but solely from imperfections in the functioning of the system of finance capitalism.