“The value of the security analyst to the investor depends largely on the investor’s own attitude. If the investor asks the analyst the right questions, he is likely to get the right or at least valuable answers.”

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.

You must never delude yourself into thinking that you’re investing when you’re speculating.

Both a priori reasoning and experience teach us that as as these funds grow larger the geometrical rate of growth by compound interest ultimately defeats itself.

As in roulette, same is true of the stock trader, who will find that the expense of trading weights the dice heavily against him.

Thousands of people have tried, and the evidence is clear: The more you trade, the less you keep.

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.

The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.

People who invest make money for themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers. And that, in turn, is why Wall Street perennially downplays the durable virtues of investing and hypes the gaudy appeal of speculation.

We have not known a single person who has consistently or lastingly make money by thus “following the market”. We do not hesitate to declare this approach is as fallacious as it is popular.

An intelligent investor gets satisfaction from the thought that his operations are exactly opposite to those of the crowd.

It should be remembered that a decline of 50% fully offsets a preceding advance of 100%.

If fees consume more than 1% of your assets annually, you should probably shop for another adviser.

Never buy a stock immediately after a substantial rise or sell one immediately after a substantial drop.