My favourite quotes

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
Warren Buffett

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.
Warren Buffett

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.
Warren Buffett

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

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

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

Our favorite holding period is forever.
Warren Buffett

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

 
Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing. 
Warren Buffett

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.
Warren Buffett

 
Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
Warren Buffett

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

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

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

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.
Warren Buffett

The great personal fortunes in the country weren’t built on a portfolio of fifty companies. They were built by someone who identified one wonderful business. With each investment you make, you should have the courage and the conviction to place at least 10% of your net worth in that stock.                                                                                                                                   Warren Buffett

You should invest in a business that even a fool can run, because someday a fool will.                                                                                                                                                                                               Warren Buffett

You should look at stocks as small pieces of business.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Warren Buffett 

Although it’s easy to forget sometimes, a share is not a lottery ticket… it’s part-ownership of a business.
Peter Lynch

Don’t bottom fish.
Peter Lynch

Everyone has the brainpower to follow the stock market. If you made it through fifth-grade math, you can do it.
Peter Lynch

Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.
Peter Lynch

I think you have to learn that there’s a company behind every stock, and that there’s only one real reason why stocks go up. Companies go from doing poorly to doing well or small companies grow to large companies.
Peter Lynch

I’ve found that when the market’s going down and you buy funds wisely, at some point in the future you will be happy. You won’t get there by reading ‘Now is the time to buy.’ 
Peter Lynch
 

When stocks are attractive, you buy them. Sure, they can go lower. I’ve bought stocks at $12 that went to $2, but then they later went to $30. You just don’t know when you can find the bottom.
Peter Lynch

You get recessions, you have stock market declines. If you don’t understand that’s going to happen, then you’re not ready, you won’t do well in the markets.
Peter Lynch

Individuals who cannot master their emotions are ill-suited to profit from the investment process.                                                                                                                                                       Benjamin Graham

Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business do not translate into obvious profits for investors.                                                                                                                                                  Benjamin Graham

Most businesses change in character and quality over the years, sometimes for the better, perhaps more often for the worse. The investor need not watch his companies’ performance like a hawk; but he should give it a good, hard look from time to time.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Benjamin Graham

Basically, price fluctuations have only one significant meaning for the true investor. They provide him with an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal. At other times he will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operating results of his companies.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Benjamin Graham

The most realistic distinction between the investor and the speculator is found in their attitude toward stock-market movements. The speculator’s primary interest lies in anticipating and profiting from market fluctuations. The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices. Market movements are important to him in a practical sense, because they alternately create low price levels at which he would be wise to buy and high price levels at which he certainly should refrain from buying and probably would be wise to sell.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Benjamin Graham

It is far from certain that the typical investor should regularly hold off buying until low market levels appear, because this may involve a long wait, very likely the loss of income, and the possible missing of investment opportunities. On the whole it may be better for the investor to do his stock buying whenever he has money to put in stocks, except when the general market level is much higher than can be justified by well-established standards of value. If he wants to be shrewd he can look for the ever-present bargain opportunities in individual securities.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Benjamin Graham

The risk of paying too high a price for good-quality stocks – while a real one – is not the chief hazard confronting the average buyer of securities. Observation over many years has taught us that the chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions. The purchasers view the current good earnings as equivalent to “earning power” and assume that prosperity is synonymous with safety.                                                                                                                                                                                 Benjamin Graham

Even with a margin [of safety] in the investor’s favor, an individual security may work out badly. For the margin guarantees only that he has a better chance for profit than for loss – not that loss is impossible. But as the number of such commitments is increased the more certain does it become that the aggregate of the profits will exceed the aggregate of the losses.        Benjamin Graham

Investment is most intelligent when it is most businesslike. It is amazing to see how many capable businessmen try to operate on Wall Street with complete disregard of all the sound principles through which they have gained success in their own undertakings. Yet every corporate security may best be viewed, in the first instance, as an ownership interest in, or a claim against, a specific business enterprise. And if a person sets out to make profits from security purchases and sales, he is embarking on a business venture of his own, which must be run in accordance with accepted business principles if it is to have a chance of success.                                                                                                                                                                           Benjamin Graham

Have the courage of your knowledge and experience. If you have formed a conclusion from the facts and if you know your judgment is sound, act on it – even though others may hesitate or differ. You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.                                                      Benjamin Graham

To achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior results is harder than it looks.                                                                                                  Benjamin Graham

One of your partners, named Mr Market, is very obliging indeed. Every day he tells you what he thinks your interest is worth and, furthermore, offers to buy you out or to sell you an additional interest on that basis. Sometimes his idea of value appears plausible and justified by business developments and prospects as you know them. Often, on the other hand, Mr Market lets his enthusiasm or his fears run away with him, and the value he proposes to you seems to you little short of silly.                                                                                                     Benjamin Graham