Insightful quotes by financial gurus
Warren Buffett
American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”
“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.”
“Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.”
“If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.”
“Our favourite holding period is forever.”
“Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.”
“It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”
“Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.”
“The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.”
“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.”
“Value is what you get.”
“When a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”
“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”
“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”
“Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.”
“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.”
“If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.”
“We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.”
“I want to give my kids enough so that they could feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.”
“Only when you combine sound intellect with emotional discipline, you get rational behavior.”
Peter Lynch
American investor
“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.”
“Everyone has the brainpower to follow the stock market. If you made it through fifth-grade math, you can do it.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Don’t bottom fish.”
“Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.”
“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.’”
“Although it’s easy to forget sometimes, a share is not a lottery ticket… it’s part-ownership of a business.”
“People have all this data and they go through it and make up their minds in four seconds, … We’re forcing people to do the wrong things. They look at what’s hot. They spend so much time trying to figure out if the market is going up. That’s so unimportant. It’s about earnings. They need to follow the earnings.”
“It’s absolute crap that people need to spend 60 hours a week analyzing companies, … All you need are a few stocks to make money. If you find one stock a year, that’s plenty. When I was running Magellan I had to find one a week but that was because I had billions of dollars. The average person needs only a few good stocks in a lifetime.”
“I spend about 15 minutes a year on economic analysis. The way you lose money in the stock market is to start off with an economic picture. I also spend 15 minutes a year on where the stock market is going.”
“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.”
Benjamin Graham
British-born American economist, professor and investor
“Wall Street people learn nothing and forget everything.”
“The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator. This means… that he should be able to justify every purchase he makes and each price he pays by impersonal, objective reasoning that satisfies him that he is getting more than his money’s worth for his purchase.”
“Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble… to give way to hope, fear and greed.”
“I am no longer an advocate of elaborate techniques of security analysis in order to find superior value opportunities.”
Suze Orman
Personal finance expert
“Owning a home is a keystone of wealth… both financial affluence and emotional security.”
“In all realms of life it takes courage to stretch your limits, express your power, and fulfill your potential… it’s no different in the financial realm.”
“A big part of financial freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs of life.”
“Opposites may attract, but I wouldn’t put my money on a relationship of financial opposites.”
“You have to have a will.”
“We never had it as rough as the kids have it today, … Look at the price of a gallon of gas or a piece of real estate or a college education.”
Albert Einstein
German-born theoretical physicist
“The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.”
“The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.”
“I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker. The example of great and pure individuals is the only thing that can lead us to noble thoughts and deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and irresistibly invites abuse.”
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