“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.”

When it comes to two of the big social earthquakes in the last fifty years – which are the gay movement and the women’s movement – I think there is a direct line from Kinsey to those.

Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business do not translate into obvious profits for investors.

Nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around.

The intelligent investor is likely to need considerable will power to keep from following the crowd.

A speculator gambles that a stock will go up in price because somebody else will pay even more for it.

Always remember that market quotations are there for convenience, either to be taken advantage of or to be ignored.

Successful investment may become substantially a matter of techniques and criteria that are learnable, rather than the product of unique and incommunicable mental powers.

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.

It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals.

Diversification is an established tenet of conservative investment.

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.