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Buy when most people, including experts, are pessimistic, and sell when they are actively optimistic.

Benjamin Graham

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Benjamin Graham
Age: 82 †
Born: 1894
Born: May 8
Died: 1976
Died: September 21
Economist
Financier
Investor
University Teacher
Writer
London
England
Including
People
Pessimistic
Actively
Optimistic
Experts
Sell
Sells

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You must never delude yourself into thinking that you're investing when you're speculating.
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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.
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The thing that I have been emphasizing in my own work for the last few years has been the group approach. To try to buy groups of stocks that meet some simple criterion for being undervalued-regardless of the industry and with very little attention to the individual company.
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The investor has a right to expect good results to flow from a consistent and courageous application of the principle of buying after the market has declined substantially and selling after it has had a spectacular rise. But he cannot expect to reduce this principle to a simple and foolproof formula, with profits guaranteed and no anxious periods.
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Before you place your financial future in the hands of an adviser, it's imperative that you find someone who not only makes you comfortable but whose honesty is beyond reproach.
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The stock market resembles a huge laundry in which institutions take in large blocks of each others washing ... without rhyme or reason.
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The market is always making mountains out of molehills and exaggerating ordinary vicissitudes into major setbacks.
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It is worth pointing out that assuredly not more than one person out of a hundred who stayed in the market after after 1925 emerged from it with a net profit and that the speculative losses taken were appalling.
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The only thing you should do with pro forma earnings is ignore them.
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It requires strength of character in order to think and to act in opposite fashion from the crowd and also patience to wait for opportunities that may be spaced years apart.
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An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return.
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The beauty of periodic rebalancing is that it forces you to base your investing decisions on a simple, objective standard.
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An intelligent investor gets satisfaction from the thought that his operations are exactly opposite to those of the crowd.
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There is a close logical connection between the concept of a safety margin and the principle of diversification.
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... the loss of public confidence in the financial community growing out of its own conduct in recent years. I insist that more damage has been done to stock values and to the future of equities from inside Wall Street than from outside Wall Street.
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In the financial markets, hindsight is forever 20/20, but foresight is legally blind. And thus, for most investors, market timing is a practical and emotional impossibility.
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We define a bargain issue as one which, on the basis of facts established by analysis, appears to be worth considerably more that it is selling for.
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It must be fundamentally wrong to reduce production of food and fiber while one-third of our population is still ill fed and ill clothed.
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In nine companies out of ten the factor of fluctuation has been a more dominant and important consideration in the matter of investment than has the factor of long-term growth or decline
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The investor should be aware that even though safety of its principal and interest may be unquestioned, a long term bond could vary widely in market price in response to changes in interest rates.
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