Quotes on Investing

You're neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You're right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right - that's the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don't have to worry about anybody else.

Investors making purchases in an overheated market need to recognize that it may often take an extended period for the value of even an outstanding company to catch up with the price they paid.

The best business returns are usually achieved by companies that are doing something quite similar today to what they were doing five or ten years ago.

Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can't buy what is popular and do well.

If you don't feel comfortable owning something for 10 years, then don't own it for 10 minutes.

A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.

Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble.

We have long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good.

I've seen more people fail because of liquor and leverage -- leverage being borrowed money. You really don't need leverage in this world much. If you're smart, you're going to make a lot of money without borrowing.

The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.

The propensity to swindle grows parallel with the propensity to speculate during a boom the implosion of an asset price bubble always leads to the discovery of frauds and swindles

Investors must keep in mind that there's a difference between a good company and a good stock. After all, you can buy a good car but pay too much for it.

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

The fact that people will be full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable.

I will not just live my life. I will not just spend my life. I will invest my life.

I contend that financial markets never reflect the underlying reality accurately; they always distort it in some way or another and the distortions find expression in market prices. Those distortions can, occasionally, find ways to affect the fundamentals that market prices are supposed to reflect.

The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.

That paper money has some advantages is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied.

Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.

The miracle of compounding returns has been overwhelmed by the tyranny of compounding costs.

I’ve learned many things from him [George Soros], but perhaps the most significant is that it’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.