The enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it’s the illusion of knowledge (Stephen Hawking)

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so (Mark Twain)

Invest with smart knowledge and objective odds

Wise Quotes

Benjamin Graham:

  • You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and your reasoning are right.
  • You don’t have to trade with Mr. Market when he wants to, but only when you want to.
  • Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of Safety.
  • Investment must always consider the price as well as the quality of the security.
  • In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.
  • Buy not on optimism, but on arithmetic.
  • As in roulette, same is true of the stock trader, who will find that the expense of trading weights the dice heavily against him.
  • A stock at a low price relative to its earnings history is an investment, the same stock trading at a much higher price becomes a speculation.

Warren Buffett:

  • I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.
  • Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.
  • Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
  • Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.
  • We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.
  • Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.
  • We don’t have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest.
  • Cash combined with courage in a time of crisis is priceless.
  • Calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic.

Charlie Munger

  • It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.
  • Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world.

Seth Klarman

  • While it might seem that anyone can be a value investor, the essential characteristics of this type of investor-patience, discipline, and risk aversion-may well be genetically determined.
  • The stock market is the story of cycles and of the human behavior that is responsible for overreactions in both directions.
  • While some might mistakenly consider value investing a mechanical tool for identifying bargains, it is actually a comprehensive investment philosophy that emphasizes the need to perform in-depth fundamental analysis, pursue long-term investment results, limit risk, and resist crowd psychology.

Various other greats:

  • You must weigh not only the alluring probabilities of being right, but the dire consequences of being wrong. (Peter Bernstein)
  • We can never know the future — least of all at the very moments when it seems most certain. (Peter Bernstein)
  • An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. (Benjamin Franklin)
  • The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing. (Phillip Fisher)
  • Know what you own, and know why you own it. (Peter Lynch)
  • Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas. (Paul Samuelson)
  • If investing is entertaining, if you’re having fun, you’re probably not making any money. Good investing is boring. (George Soros)
  • The four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different. (Sir John Templeton)
  • You can’t be a good value investor without being an independent thinker – you’re seeing valuations that the market is not appreciating. But it’s critical that you understand why the market isn’t seeing the value you do. The back and forth that goes on in the investment process helps you get at that. (Joe Greenblatt)
  • Speculation is an effort, probably unsuccessful, to turn a little money into a lot. Investing is an effort, which should be successful, to prevent a lot of money from becoming a little. (Fred Schwed Jr.)
  • A treetop is the proper place for a cradle. (Fred Schwed Jr.)
  • Bull-markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria. (Sir John Templeton)