A Quote by Benjamin Graham

The art of investment has one characteristic that is not generally appreciated. A creditable, if unspectacular, result can be achieved by the lay investor with a minimum of effort and capability; but to improve this easily attainable standard requires much application and more than a trace of wisdom. If you merely try to bring just a little extra knowledge and cleverness to bear upon your investment program, instead of realizing a little better than normal results, you may well find that you have done worse.
Index investing is an investment strategy that Walter Mitty would love. It takes very little investment knowledge, no skill, practically no time or effort-and outperforms about 80 percent of all investors.
The Berkshire-style investors tend to be less diversified than other people. The academics have done a terrible disservice to intelligent investors by glorifying the idea of diversification. Because I just think the whole concept is literally almost insane. It emphasizes feeling good about not having your investment results depart very much from average investment results. But why would you get on the bandwagon like that if somebody didn't make you with a whip and a gun?
Rather, risk is a perception in each investor's mind that results from analysis of the probability and amount of potential loss from an investment. If an exploratory oil well proves to be a dry hole, it is called risky. If a bond defaults or a stock plunges in price, they are called risky. But if the well is a gusher, the bond matures on schedule, and the stock rallies strongly, can we say they weren't risky when the investment after it is concluded than was known when it was made.
It is amazing how little effort most people make to improve control of their attention. If reading a book seems too difficult, instead of sharpening concentration we tend to set it aside and instead turn on the television, which not only requires minimal attention, but in fact tends to diffuse what little it commands with choppy editing, commercial interruptions, and generally inane content.
Has your work become very easy? Do you find you can do it with little effort? Has it ceased to impose any strain or fatigue upon you? Do you no longer feel loss of vitality after a long spell of it? Can you now do it as easy as water rolls off a duck's back? If so, look out! Do some stock-taking. Examine your output.... Work done with little effort is likely to yield little result. Every job can be done excellently or indifferently. Excellence necessitates effort-hard, sustained, concentrated effort.
Now obviously popularity isn't everything when it comes to stand up comedy, but the art form itself is better today than it ever has before. I think there are more great comics. I think the standard is higher. The critical analysis is a little harsher, but that is also good. Maybe people have a higher standard than before, maybe they are a little more judgmental, a little more brutal, that makes people work harder. It makes the stand up better.
Art is not an investment. Art is something you buy because you are financially solvent enough to give yourself a pleasure of living with great works rather than having to just see them in museums. People who are buying art at the top of the market as an investment are foolish.
Let us all try to stand a little taller, rise a little higher, be a little better. Make the extra effort. You will be happier.
Smart recessionary marketing means not waiting for business to return to normal. Instead, you should cash in on this invaluable opportunity your more cautious competitors may be creating for you. If they pull back, your media investment works much harder.
When we do an investment, we always ask, 'Can we affect the outcome? When buying a company, can we have an impact?' That's a different style of investing than a passive investor in the stock market. To me, that's how you're taking the risk out of it. You know what your capability is and how you can enhance value.
Yes, negotiating is about money and the bottom line, but a lot of times, it's much more emotional and complex than that. Realizing that the economic outcome may not be the other party's top priority gives you more chips to play with and will enable you to achieve better results than you may have anticipated.
To be someone's best friend requires a minimum investment of time. More than that, though, it takes emotional energy. Caring about someone deeply is exhausting.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. When it comes to investing, nothing will pay off more than educating yourself. Do the necessary research, study and analysis before making any investment decisions.
The line between failure and success is so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a person has thrown up his or her hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.
From inability to let well alone; from too much zeal for the new and contempt for what is old; from putting knowledge before wisdom, science before art and cleverness before common sense; from treating patients as cases; and from making the cure of the disease more grievous than the endurance of the same, Good Lord, deliver us.
Everyone works hard when they want to, when they get quick results, when it's convenient to put forth effort. The best work hard when they don't want to, when it's inconvenient to give it that little extra effort... and that extra effort might be just what they need to place them on top.
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