Top Highlights

• “An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis promises safety of principal and an adequate return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative.” While we have clung
• A stock is not just a ticker symbol or an electronic blip; it is an ownership interest in an actual business, with an underlying value that does not depend on its share price. 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 int...
• Santayana: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
• “while enthusiasm may be necessary for great accomplishments elsewhere, on Wall Street it almost invariably leads to disaster.” By letting themselves get carried away—on Internet stocks, on big “growth” stocks, on stocks as a whole—many people made the same stupid mistakes as Sir Isaac Newton.
• thought that he hoped every day to do “something foolish, something creative and something generous.” The inclusion of that first whimsical goal reflected his knack for packaging ideas in a form that avoided any overtones of sermonizing or self-importance. Although his ideas were powerful, their delivery was unfailingly gentle.