Make happy those who are near,

and those who are far will come.

- Chinese Proverb

Swans sing before they die; 'twere no bad thing 

Did certain persons die before they sing.

For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.

- Warren E. Buffett [1930- ]; 2005 Chairman's Letter, Berkshire-Hathaway Co.

...all you got to do to join [the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement] is sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar. With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar here and sing it when it does. Here it comes. 

'You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant. ...'

- Folk Singer Arlo Guthrie [1947- ]; excerpt from his anti-war song "Alice's Restaurant"

To every thing there is a season, 

and a time to every purpose under the heaven. 

- Ecclesiastes 3

Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, 

mature on optimism, and die on euphoria.

- Michael B. Steele [Investment counselor; former investment officer with Bank One Trust Company, Bernstein-Macauley investment managers and other firms.]

"...it can be sad or even tragic when we interpret as failures plans or people simply because they did not succeed. Extraordinary events, both good and bad, can happen without extraordinary causes..."

- Physicist, author and Caltech professor Leonard Mlodinow (1954- ), in "Triumph of the Random" (Wall St. Journal, July 3, 2009); author of "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives (2008)";  co-author with Stephen Hawking of "A Briefer History of Time".

- Presbyterian Minister William J. H. Boetcker (1873–1962), religious leader and public speaker

[Benjamin] Graham's observations that investors pay too much for trendy, fashionable stocks and too little for companies that are out-of-favor, was on the money... why does this profitability discrepancy persist? Because emotion favors the premium-priced stocks.

- David Dreman (1936- ), investment manager, author of "contrarian strategy" books, in Forbes (1996)

If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.

- Aristotle Onassis (1906 - 1975), Greek shipping tycoon; husband of Athina Livanos (1946 - 1960), husband of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1968 - 1975)

The first time you marry for love, the second for money, and the third for companionship.

- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929 - 1994); wife of John F. Kennedy (1953-1963), wife of Aristotle Onassis (1968 - 1975), companion of Maurice Tempelsman (>1975 - 1994)

If you truly want to get rich and live a life of luxury, then you must master the ability of generating cash flow from passive income sources. Working will never free you from having to work. 

- Perry Jones (1960 - ), self-styled urban philosopher and financial guru, in his article How to Get Rich III

The public are just as blind to recognizing the bottom of a depression as they are in recognizing the top of the boom. 

- Dean Mathey (1890 - 1972): Dillon Read partner; Princeton Univ. endowment manager who moved to bonds before the 1929 Crash; Princeton Univ. benefactor; from his book Fifty Years of Wall Street (1966) which included the line above from Mathey's 1934 memo "What I Learned from the Depression."

PLANNING: Much work remains to be done before we can announce our total failure to make any progress.

- "Demotivators" poster slogan at www.Despair.com

"The financial system nearly collapsed," he said, "because smart guys had started working on Wall Street." ..."But weren't there smart guys on Wall Street in the first place?" I asked. He looked at me the way a mathematics teacher might look at a child....

90% of all cited statistics may have been made up on the spot. 

Of the 5.7 million jobs Americans lost between December 2007 and May 2009, nearly 80% had been held by men. Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan, characterizes the recession as a "downturn" for women but a "catastrophe" for men.

Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion. 

A "sound banker" is one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way.

"One of the greatest advantages of real estate investing is the power of leveraging your money and investment. For example, you can tie up a $100,000 asset with only $1,000 of your own money... . Is this not outstanding?"

In the eyes of public opinion, the contrarian investor faces a lose-lose proposition. When contrarian approaches fail to keep pace with the current market darling, more-fashionable players mock the out-of-step thinker. When contrarian approaches surpass the alternatives, consensus-oriented players decry the irresponsibility of the unconventional investor.       

- David Swensen (1954- ), Yale Univ. Endowment Portfolio Manager, in "Unconventional Success"

On a cold day it is very easy to borrow a fan. 

We used to call a trained investment professional a "broker", but we're all broker now.

You win your best future by making this your best day.

I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher than it is today within a few months.   

If you see a banker jump out a window, jump after him --  there's sure to be a profit in it.

- Voltaire (aka Francois-Marie Arouet, 1694-1778) Philosopher, Essayist and Writer

Data's name is properly pronounced "day-tuh" as opposed to "dah-ta" or "datt-a". When Data corrects Dr. Katherine Pulaski for using the latter pronunciation, Pulaski asks, "What's the difference?" Data replies, "One is my name. The other is not." 

It takes between 20 and 800 years of monitoring performance to statistically prove that a money manager is skillful, not lucky. ... Even to be only 75% sure he's skillful, you'd generally have to track a manager's performance for between 16 and 115 years. 

A senior-citizen investor owned American Water Works, Arkansas Electric, and Tennessee Gas Pipeline. He e-mailed his broker for advice and got back this terse text message: "Buy more electric. Hold your water. Let go of the gas." 

Talk, you teach. Listen, you learn. 

Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. 

(1) Economists don't know very much. And other people know even less.

(2) Stein's Law: If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, 

I say, "Don't be economic girlie men!" 

The future will be better tomorrow. 

...that best portion of a good man's life, 

His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. 

#21: If it is possible to bring about a cure by means of foods or healthful nourishment, do not administer drugs as these -- especially those that purge -- are contrary to nature and are her enemies.

America's #1 Killer?   Retirement... no one gets out of it alive. 

Anonymous

A crowd is at the mercy of all external exciting causes, the slave of the impulses which it receives. 

[Gustav Le Bon, French social observer, psychologist, amateur scientist (1841-1931). Author of The Crowd, which cut a path for the creation of 20th Century political propaganda and racial superiority theories.]

The largest shape is without border, the largest noise is without sound, and the grandest story is without words.

[Chinese aphorism based in Taoism; a focus of Zhang Jie's book "Without Words"]

[The Japanese] are extremely good imitators - and so polite they even copy the mistakes.

[Earl Scruggs (1924- ), Bluegrass musician, Banjo aficionado from North Carolina]

In all games the difference between the amateur and the professional is that the professional plays the odds, while the amateur, whether he realizes it or not, is among other things a thrill seeker.

[John Train (1928- ), Foreword to The Craft of Investing, 1994]

In a "winner's game", the player who makes the most points wins. In a "loser's game", the player who makes the fewest mistakes wins. The best strategy for winning a loser's game is to lose less. In a loser's game, you play conservative and give your opponent as many opportunities to blunder as possible.

[paraphrased from Charles Ellis' Financial Analysts Journal article "The Loser's Game", 1975]

If a consumer finds he's being sold rotten meat at the grocery store, he has the very best (consumer) protection agency available: the market.

[Milton Friedman (1912-2006), 1973 Playboy interview]

I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.

[Patrick Henry, 1735-99]

Whatever method you use to pick stocks or stock mutual funds, your ultimate success or failure will depend on your ability to ignore the worries of the world long enough to allow your investments to succeed. It isn't the head but the stomach that determines the fate of the stock-picker.

[Peter Lynch, Beating the Street, (1994)]

Financier Nathan Rothschild lived in London in the early 19th century. Getting out of a hackney cab one time, he gave a very small tip. 

The cab driver said, "You know, Mr. Rothschild, your daughter Julie gave me a much larger tip than that."

Rothschild responded, "That's all right for her. She's got a rich father."

[Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor (1971)]

An Engineering graduate asks, "How does it work?"

An Accounting student asks, "How much will it cost?"

But a Liberal Arts major asks, "You want fries with that?"

[Anonymous]

They say this is the next great thing, but it just isn't.

[Toyota Executive Engineer D. Hermance, about the "plug-in" electric car]

When you're through changing, you're through.

[Advertising exec Bruce Barton (1886-1967), BBDO founder...attributed by NY Times columnist William Safire]

Foreign investing usually involves boom/bust sequences. 

And I concluded early on that foreign investors acting as a herd always proved to be wrong. 

[George Soros (1930-), financier, philanthropist, political meddler]

Some editors are failed writers, but then, so are most writers.

Life is short, art is long, opportunity fugitive, 

experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult ...

Turkish motto: Yol bilen kervana katilmaz.

["He who knows the road does not join the caravan."]

[Cited by W.F. Vallicella at //maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/aphorisms_and_observations/, Feb. 2006]

I will tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day.  

[Albert Camus, 1913 - 1960, French journalist / philosopher]

The stock market is always going lower (when it is headed down) and always is going higher (when it is headed up). Sounds stupid, doesn't it? But that about expresses the public psychology.  

[Humphrey B. Neill, "The Art of Contrary Thinking", first published 1954, now in a 12th edition]

The most important message ... is to stay invested in stocks. This is extremely difficult for many investors, especially during bear markets. As a result, they jump into and out of even the best funds as market conditions change, dramatically lowering their returns.  

[Jeremy J. Siegel, Professor and author, in Stocks for the Long Run (1994)]

It is not size that counts in business. Some companies with $500,000 capital are making more profits than other companies with $5,000,000. Size is a handicap unless efficiency goes with it. 

[Herbert N. Casson, 1869 - 1951, Canadian/American/English minister, Socialist activist, writer and publisher. He worked for Pulitzer's New York World and wrote books about millionaire inventors and businessmen... particularly in turn-of-the-century steel and telephone industries.]

In the long run, most people will find themselves better fixed if they will invest not on the basis of large returns and high interest rates, but on the soundness of the company, its prospects for the future, and hold what they buy for permanent investment. Trying to "beat the market" is a losing game for the vast majority. 

[Amadeo Peter Giannini, 1870-1949, immigrant founder of the working man's "Bank of Italy" in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood. By 1919, he expanded this business across California as BancItaly. He bought insurer Transamerica in 1928 and consolidated his nationwide enterprise under the name of a venerable New York City bank he acquired...Bank of America. Unlike most executives, now or then, Giannini refused high salaries, gave away much of what he was paid, and died with $500,000 to his good name.]

Bragging may not bring happiness, but no man who's caught a large fish walks home through the alley. 

[Anonymous]

Ultimately, commoditization means competing on price alone, which isn't really competing at all. It's just an endless game of "who can make and sell it cheaper." Commodity products have little intelligence built into them, and your customers have little loyalty. If the next guy can make it more cheaply, they're gone. And so are you. 

Q: "I have a decent size credit line on my primary residence. I want to pick a property to purchase... Any thoughts?"

A: "I have learned....if it can happen, it will happen. Here goes my opinion. I say use OPM (Other Peoples Money)."

It does not matter whether the cat is black or white, only that it catches mice.

A 14-year-old horse with a great record may not be able to run anymore.

The years teach much which days never know.

Too many hours with soft-ware you know,

makes you soft you-know-where.

[Anonymous]

Much wisdom often goes with fewer words.

For big money, stock picking is irrelevant. 

Asset allocation is the whole game.

My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, 

Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate

Upon the fortune of this present year

Therefore, my merchandise makes me not sad.

Read every day something no one else is reading. 

Think every day something no one else is thinking. 

Do every day something no one else would be silly enough to do. 

It is bad for the mind to be always a part of unanimity.

If you foolishly ignore beauty, you'll soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you wisely invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life. 

A fact is a fact and is always the same. An opinion may vary with what you had for dinner.

An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously. 

[Charles F. Kettering, 1876-1955, engineer and inventor with 300 patents... 

Futures [contract trading] has always had a sordid history, at all the exchanges. It looks like a gambling casino, and therefore it is used as a scapegoat. When anything goes wrong in the world, it is easy to pick on futures and say it is their fault. We have proved time and time again that it isn't our fault.

The most successful businessperson is the one who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.*

[Robert P. Vanderpoel (former Chicago Sun-Times Financial Columnist)] 

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

[Attributed to BOTH... author Ralph W. Emerson (1803-82) and 

Every time someone asks, "How are you?"... respond with a "Just wonderful!"... Say you feel wonderful at every possible opportunity and you will begin to feel wonderful. Become known as a person who always feels great.

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read.

If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything. 

My definition of a guru is someone who is lucky enough to be quoted in the right publication at the right time saying the right thing.  

It is often easier to tell what will happen to the price of a stock than how much time will elapse before it happens. 

The thing that is most interesting to me is that every one of the managers is able to give me a chart that shows me that he was in the first quartile or the first decile. 

Do we know where our school motto "The Best is Yet to Be!" comes from?

 These words are taken from Robert Browning's (1812-1889) poem titled "Rabbi Ben Ezra", first published in 1864, which begins... 

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'' 

Ben Ezra was a Jewish scholar of twelfth century Spain. In his poem, Browning uses the figure of Ben Ezra, a theist familiar with Scripture, to oppose the Epicurean and Sceptic view that men should live for the passing moment. 

Today in America too many large corporations are the property no longer of shareholders but of management and investment bankers. Together they're having a ball [having] forgotten who their owners are. We don't think there needs to be a great revolution, but we think that maybe shareholders shouldn't take a totally passive role. We have to be more activist. 

I'd like to live like a poor man with lots of money.

In investing money, the amount of interest you want should depend on whether you want to eat well or sleep well. 

I can complain because rosebushes have thorns, or rejoice because thornbushes have roses; it's all how you look at it.

I was a technician at Putnam, and the fund managers were giving me an unusually hard time one day. I told them "Yes, the boss just called me into his office, and said I had been making a lot of mistakes recently. He added that if I kept it up they'd have to give me a fund to run."

********

When it's time to buy, you won't want to.

A. There's a cartoon from the New Yorker that shows two lions on a hilltop, and one says "I'm not picky -- whatever's wounded." Over time, I think the typical stock that's wounded -- that's out of favor in the market -- will outperform. 

It is wise to remember that too much success in the stock market is in itself an excellent warning.

-Book of Isaiah 2:4  

Each of them will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, with no one to make them afraid.

Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

Money can't buy happiness... but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than in a Yugo.

If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.

Fundamental Law of Administrative Workings (F.L.A.W.):   

Things are what they are reported to be, or... If it isn't official, it hasn't happened.

It is better to have loafed and lost, then never to have loafed at all.

Great estates may venture more, Little boats must keep near the shore.

It buys you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.

As a general rule, nobody has money who ought to have it. 

A Dutchman was explaining the red, white and blue Netherlands flag to an American...

"Our flag is symbolic of our taxes," he said. "We get red talking about them, white when we receive tax bills, and blue after we pay them."

The American nodded. "It's the same in the USA, only we see stars too!"

In a country well governed poverty is something to be ashamed of.

In a country badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed of.

Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous...

When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.

Stocks are bought on expectations, not facts.