black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.

Benjamin Graham

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

Growth Investing Profit
Individuals who cannot master their emotions are ill-suited to profit from the investment process.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Emotion Investing Investment
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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Clothed Feds Fiber Population
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
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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Men Selling
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
The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Optimism Swings
The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Change Intelligent Significant Sound
If General Motors is worth $60 a share to an investor it must be because the full common-stock ownership of this gigantic enterprise as a whole is worth 43 million (shares) times $60, or no less than $2,600 million.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Common Ownership Share
The sillier the market’s behavior, the greater the opportunity for the business like investor.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Behavior Investing Opportunity
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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Affected Investment Passing Temperament Years
Successful investing is about managing risk, not avoiding it.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Risk Successful
It requires strength of character in order to think and to act in opposite fashion from the crowd and also patience to wait for opportunities that may be spaced years apart.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Character Fashion Thinking
Losing some money is an inevitable part of investing, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. But to be an intelligent investor, you must take responsibility for ensuring that you never lose most or all of your money.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Responsibility
To achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior results is harder than it looks.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Looks People
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

Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Benjamin Graham Quotes