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A defensive investor can always prosper by looking patiently and calmly through the wreckage of a bear market.

Benjamin Graham

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
Stocks can be dynamite.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Dynamite Progressive Stock
The distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Causes Common Investing
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
The intelligent investor is likely to need considerable will power to keep from following the crowd.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Crowd Following Intelligent Needs
The volume of credit depends upon three factors: the desire to borrow, the ability to lend and the desire to lend.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Credit Desire Three
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
… the loss of public confidence in the financial community growing out of its own conduct in recent years. I insist that more damage has been done to stock values and to the future of equities from inside Wall Street than from outside Wall Street.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Loss Wall Years
Successful investing is about managing risk, not avoiding it.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Risk Successful
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
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
Though business conditions may change, corporations and securities may change, and financial institutions and regulations may change, human nature remains the same.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Attitude Important Years
It should be remembered that a decline of 50% fully offsets a preceding advance of 100%.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Decline Investing Should
The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Realist
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
A great company is not a great investment if you pay too much for the stock.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Much Pay Too
Do not let anyone else run your business
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Anyone Buisness Else Running
It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Economist Including Needs Profession
The existence of such a war chest might go far to strengthen our prestige and frighten off any would be assailant.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Assailant Chest Prestige Strengthen War
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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Egypt Seems Seven Simple Thinking Year
The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Interest Lying Market Timing
Instead of passing blithely over into that Promised Land, flowing almost literally with milk and honey, it may be our destiny to wander a full 40 years or more in the wilderness of doubt and divided sentiments.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Destiny Honey Milk Years
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
The market is always making mountains out of molehills and exaggerating ordinary vicissitudes into major setbacks.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Mountain Ordinary Vicissitudes
By developing your discipline and courage, you can refuse to let other people’s mood swings govern your financial destiny. In the end, how your investments behave is much less important than how you behave.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Destiny Discipline Swings
Undervaluations caused by neglect or prejudice may persist for an inconveniently long time, and the same applies to inflated prices caused by over-enthusiasm or artificial stimulants.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Enthusiasm Long May Prejudice Time
The intelligent investor gets interested in big growth stocks not when they are at their most popular – but when something goes wrong.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Growth Intelligent Investing

A defensive investor can always prosper by looking patiently and calmly through the wreckage of a bear market.

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A defensive investor can always prosper by looking patiently and calmly through the wreckage of a bear market.

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