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Quote Authors

Arnold Van Den Berg, Arthur Rock, Benjamin Graham, Bernard Baruch, Bill Miller, Charles Ellis, Charlie Munger, Chris Browne, Chuck Akre, Daniel Kahneman, David Abrams, David Swensen, Dean LeBaron, Dean Williams, Edward Thorp, Edwin Lefevre, Fred Schwed Jr, George Soros, Henry Singleton, Hetty Green, Howard Marks, Joel Greenblatt, John Bogle, John Kenneth Galbraith, John Maynard Keynes, John Neff, John Stuart Mill, John Templeton, Lou Simpson, Marty Whitman, Meir Statman, Michael Price, Mohnish Pabrai, Myron Scholes, Paul Tudor Jones, Peter Bernstein, Peter Cundill, Peter Lynch, Philip Carret, Philip Fisher, Richard Thaler, Robert Kirby, Robert Shiller, Robert Wilson, Seth Klarman, Stanley Druckenmiller, T. Rowe Price, Walter Schloss, Warren Buffett,

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Historically, many companies that have had terrible times have come back, or many of them do. A decline doesn't mean it's the end.
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Walter Schloss
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Good ideas and good products are a dime a dozen. Good execution and good management -- in a word, good people -- are rare.
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Arthur Rock
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Many business success stories are due at least in part to simple good luck.
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Arthur Rock
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The biggest problem in starting high-tech businesses is the shortage of superior managers. There is too much money chasing too few good managers.
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Arthur Rock
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You have to really understand the businesses that you’re buying through the medium of stocks. And unless you’re willing to put a lot into that, you shouldn’t expect to get much out of it.
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Warren Buffett
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Over the long-term, big companies of America behave more like biology than they do anything else. In biology, all the individuals die and so do all the species. It’s just a question of time. And that’s pretty well what happens in the economy too.
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Charlie Munger
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Investors should seek a company that can lower the cost of production and develop an expanding market without materially reducing the return on capital invested in the business.
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T. Rowe Price
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While the trend in profit margins is one of the most important factors to consider, it is not always the company which reports the higher profit margin that proves to be the better growth stock.
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T. Rowe Price
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The two best ways of measuring the life cycle of an industry are unit volume of sales and net earnings available for stockholders.
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T. Rowe Price
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Earnings of most corporations pass through a life cycle which, like the human cycle, has three important phases -- growth, maturity, and decadence.
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T. Rowe Price
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Once a business is well established, the greatest opportunity for gain is afforded during the period of growth in earning power. The risk factor increases when maturity is reached and decadence begins.
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T. Rowe Price
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One of the things I have learned over the years is how important management is in building or subtracting from value.
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Lou Simpson
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It is easy, of course, to pick out good companies, companies that are better than other companies. But that is not the same thing as picking out good stocks to buy at their current prices.
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Benjamin Graham
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I like dealing with someone who is not trying to figure how to get the fixtures in the executive washroom gold-plated.
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Warren Buffett
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We don't buy and sell stocks based upon what other people think the stock market is going to do (I never have an opinion) but rather upon what we think the company is going to do.
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Warren Buffett
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I have observed many cases of habit patterns in all activities of life, particularly business, continuing (and becoming accentuated as years pass) long after they ceased making sense.
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Warren Buffett
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The single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power. If you've got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, you're got a very good business. And if you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by a tenth of a cent, then you've got a terrible business.
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Warren Buffett
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If the balance sheet figures look right, I come to the next and hardest part -- appraising management.
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Philip Carret
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If a company has a sound balance sheet with minimal long-term debt, good growth prospects and responsible management, then the stock should be interesting.
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Philip Carret
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Change creates opportunities to grow, but it also creates opportunities to slip.
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Philip Fisher
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It's my job to find unusual companies and then judge whether the price they're selling at is too high.
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Philip Fisher
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If you are in the right companies, the potential rise can be so enormous that everything else is secondary.
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Philip Fisher
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Even a great company can be priced too high if there's a lot of glamour attached to it.
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Philip Fisher
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I have stressed management, but even so, I haven't stressed it enough. It is the most important ingredient.
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Philip Fisher
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It's not what industry you're in, it's what you're doing right that your rivals haven't yet figured out.
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Philip Fisher
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Buy slowly stocks of companies that will capitalize on the problems of scarcity and social need. Companies with excellent management.
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Philip Fisher
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I think it is more conservative in the long run to be in a company that is really progressing and really has an edge.
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Philip Fisher
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I am vitally interested in companies that are going to survive, but I don't think a big cap company is necessarily one that will.
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Philip Fisher
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I want companies that welcome dissent, rather than stifle it, that don't penalize people who criticize what management is doing.
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Philip Fisher
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The things most companies boast about are yesterday's story.
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Philip Fisher
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My business is to find unusual companies and judge whether the price is too high.
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Philip Fisher
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The products or services that have wide, sustainable moats around them are the ones that deliver rewards to investors.
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Warren Buffett
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To some degree, I'm betting on the continuation of what is now. I'm not betting it will continue exactly, but I'm betting against dramatic discontinuities.
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Warren Buffett
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We don't go into companies with the thought of effecting a lot of change. That doesn't work any better in investments than it does in marriages.
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Warren Buffett
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I want to be in businesses so good that even a dummy can make money.
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Warren Buffett
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The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.
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Warren Buffett
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I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and a better businessman because I am an investor.
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Warren Buffett
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When a manager with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, the reputation of the business remains intact.
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Warren Buffett
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Almost all of the big, great ideas in business are very simple.
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Warren Buffett
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You’re not buying a stock, you’re buying part ownership in a business. You will do well if the business does well. And if you didn't pay a totally silly price.
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Warren Buffett
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In business, you don’t have to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results. You have to have a sound approach, but you don’t have to be brilliant.
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Warren Buffett
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When you find a really good business run by first-class people, chances are a price that looks high isn’t high. The combination is rare enough, it’s worth a pretty good price.
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Warren Buffett
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If you just buy businesses that your idiot nephew can run, you're going to do all right.
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Warren Buffett
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The best kind of business to be in is something where you sell something that costs a penny and sells for a dollar and is habit forming.
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Warren Buffett
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Despite the advantages of size, wealth, a good name and a long tradition, a large enterprise will cease to be profitable if the men at the head get hardening of the arteries or atrophy of the brain tissue or if their heirs prove unequal to inherited responsibilities. Momentum alone will not carry a business forward under such circumstances. Some younger and more aggressive group will assume the leadership of the industry.
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Philip Carret
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If it's a choice between investing in a good company in a great industry, or a great company in a lousy industry, I'll take the great company in the lousy industry any day. Good management, a strong balance sheet, and a sensible plan of action will overcome many obstacles, but when you've got weak management, a weak balance sheet, and a misguided plan of action, the greatest industry in the world won't bail you out.
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Peter Lynch
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Investing is buying a fractional interest in a business and buying debt claims on a business.
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Seth Klarman
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If you don't understand a company, if you can't explain it to a 10-year-old in 2 minutes or less, don't own it.
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Peter Lynch
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I don't think people understand there's 100% correlation with what happens to a company's earnings over several years and what happens to the stock.
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Peter Lynch
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Spinoffs have a terrific, terrific record in my lifetime. When companies get spun off, something seems to happen to them. They get better run, even though they were well run before.
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Peter Lynch
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The best companies often thrive even as their competitors struggle to survive.
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Peter Lynch
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When there's a war going on, don't buy the companies that are doing the fighting; buy the companies that sell the bullets.
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Peter Lynch
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The history of business the world over is full of examples of businesses which have grown from modest beginnings to stupendous earning power.
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Philip Carret
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Anomalies are always to be found in the business situation.
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Philip Carret
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Sometimes it's necessary to look at familiar companies in new ways.
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Peter Lynch
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The harsh truth is that yesterday's reinvention doesn't mean as much as today's execution and tomorrow's competition. Just as old companies sometimes have to learn new tricks, new companies have to keep changing.
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Peter Lynch
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If you don't believe corporate profits will continue to rise, and you can't stomach a decline in the market, don't buy stocks or equity mutual funds.
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Peter Lynch
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This is the way the capitalist ecology works. Industries decline, old companies wither away, and young companies rise up to replace them. This process is hard on many, but ultimately, it is healthy.
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Peter Lynch
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Ultimately, to be an investor in stocks, you have to believe that American business has a decent future, as well as business worldwide, and that corporations will continue to increase their profits.
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Peter Lynch
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As corporate profits increase, corporations become more valuable, and sooner or later, their shares will sell for a higher price.
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Peter Lynch
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What makes stocks valuable in the long run isn't "the market." It's the profitability of the shares in the companies you own.
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Peter Lynch
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It's worth reminding ourselves from time to time that gyrations in a stock price may tell us absolutely nothing about the prospects of the company involved.
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Peter Lynch
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Here's my investment motto of the month: It's the company, stupid.
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Peter Lynch
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My idea of a great business is one that has a shortage of competitors.
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Peter Lynch
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It's in the nature of Wall Street to imagine that whenever a company sets a record for earnings, it will go on setting new ones.
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Peter Lynch
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With every company, there is something to worry about, but the question is, which worries are valid and which are not?
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Peter Lynch
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A lot of great companies have made a lot of decisions you haven't heard about because they decided not to do something. Some of the best decisions they did do was to not do something.
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Peter Lynch
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The companies that do well, look out five, six, seven years, and some decisions they make may not be the right thing for the next year.
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Peter Lynch
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Behind all the smoke and noise on the market's surface, it's important to remember that companies -- small, medium, and large -- make up the market's backbone. And corporate earnings drive stock prices.
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Peter Lynch
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The factors that affect the state of what we call "general business" are innumerable.
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Philip Carret
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In a public service corporation, bad management may curtail profits or produce losses, good management may turn a weak corporation into a strong one.
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Philip Carret
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We've seen what happens to companies whose chief executive gets the best press. They are often the ones who end up with the least profits.
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Henry Singleton
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We tried to buy good companies to start with. We don't think there are supermen who can renovate them and transform them into wonderful, highly profitable enterprises. We can't do it, and history shows that nobody else can do it, either.
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Henry Singleton
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I do not define my job in any rigid terms but in terms of having the freedom to do what seems to me to be in the best interests of the company at any time.
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Henry Singleton
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Our attitude toward cash generation and asset management came out of our own thought process. It is not copied. After we acquired a number of businesses we reflected on aspects of business. Our own conclusion was that the key was cash flow.
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Henry Singleton
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A common stock investor is one who regards his common stock holdings as a proprietary interest in various businesses, not as a series of quotations in a newspaper.
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Benjamin Graham
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Probably the largest aggregate losses are suffered by people who invest overenthusiastically in a basically sound company.
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Benjamin Graham
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The higher the quality of a company the more inescapable is the speculative component in its price, and the more subject it is to wide price variations.
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Benjamin Graham
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It is interesting to see how unpopular companies can become, merely because their immediate prospects are clouded in the speculative mind.
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Benjamin Graham
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The official who keeps one eye on his business and one on the stock market is not likely long to be numbered among the leaders.
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Philip Carret
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I didn't spend any time predicting the economy, or the stock market. I spent all my time looking at companies.
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Peter Lynch
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Stocks are not lottery tickets. There's a company behind every stock. If the company does well, the stock does well. It's not that complicated.
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Peter Lynch
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Averaged out, betting on the quality of a business is better than betting on the quality of management. In other words, if you have to choose one, bet on the business momentum, not the brilliance of the manager.
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Charlie Munger
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The stock market registers the judgments of multitudes of buyers and sellers about the many factors which affect business -- what business is like today; what it will be like in the future.
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Bernard Baruch
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I want a company that's simple. They don't have to make seven brilliant decisions every six months to keep going.
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Peter Lynch
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