“ If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars. ”

“ If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need. ”

“ So smile when you read a headline that says “Investors lose as market falls.” Edit it in your mind to “Disinvestors lose as market falls—but investors gain.” Though writers often forget this truism, there is a buyer for every seller and what hurts one necessarily helps the other. (As they say in golf matches: “Every putt makes someone happy.”) ”

“ Wall Street is the only place that people drive to in a Rolls Royce to take advice from people who ride the subway. ”

“ Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing. ”

“ [Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head. ”

“ Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the models. Beware of geeks bearing formulas. ”

“ In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield. ”

“ One of the biggest mistakes we made was trying to automate things that are super easy for a person to do, but super hard for a robot to do. ”

“ When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results. ”

“ What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end. ”

“ Never ask a barber if you need a haircut. ”