The How-To EntrepreneurThe Inspiration, Motivation and Success Blog

What’s nice about investing is you don’t have to swing at every pitch.

The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.

Price is what you pay and value is what you get.

In the short term, the market is a voting machine. In the long term, it is a weighing machine. (Explanation: The father of value investing, Benjamin Graham, explained this concept by saying that in the short run, the market is like a voting machine–tallying up which firms are popular and unpopular. But in the long run, the market is like a weighing machine–assessing the substance of a company. The message is clear: What matters in the long run is a company’s actual underlying business performance and not the investing public’s fickle opinion about its prospects in the short run.)

Stick with businesses you understand.

Never look back. There is so much to look forward to.

Don’t focus on macro economics stuff, predictions, etc. It is all irrelevant.

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.

It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked

The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.

Wall Street makes its money in activity, you make your money on inactivity.

Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

I’d rather have a $10 million business making 15% than a $100 million business making 5%, I have other places I can put the money

Time is the friend of the wonderful business; it is the enemy of the lousy business. If you are in a lousy business for a long time, you will get a lousy result even if you buy it cheap. If you are in a wonderful business for a long time, even if you pay a little bit too much going in you will get a wonderful result if you stay in a long time.

It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.

I don’t try to jump over 7-foot hurdles: I look for 1-foot hurdles that I can step over.

We don’t get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we will wait, we’ll wait indefinitely.

When a management team with a reputation for brilliance joins a business with poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.

I am a better investor because I am a businessman and a better businessman because I am an investor.

I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.

A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.

Great investment opportunities come around when excellent companies are surrounded by unusual circumstances that cause the stock to be misappraised.

I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.

I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.

Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

Our favorite holding period is forever.

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.

It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.

Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.

The only time to buy these junk bonds is on a day with no “y” in it. (NEVER!)

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves-and the better the teacher, the better the student body.

We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.

Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful”.

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.