A Quote by John Templeton

Bull markets are born on pessimism, grown on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell.

John Templeton

Quote Topics

Best Best Time Born Bull Bull Market Bull Markets Buy Die Euphoria Grown Markets Mature Maximum Optimism Pessimism Sell Skepticism Time

Quote Author

John Templeton
American - Businessman
November 29, 1912 - July 8, 2008

Bull-markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria.

John Templeton

The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy.

John Templeton

Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.

Norman Cousins

I ceased using words like optimism and pessimism a long time ago.

Wole Soyinka

Some people argue against both optimism and pessimism in favor of so-called realistic thinking. They distrust optimism on the grounds that it causes us to sugercoat problems, discount risks, and exaggerate the upside. Pessimism, on the other hand, is criticized as too downbeat, de-energizing, and generally damaging in its impact. This crown prefers realism as the neutral and objective middle ground.

Price Pritchett

There's probably a little greater case for pessimism than optimism. But I do not rule out optimism.

Jim Leach

Nietzsche inveighs against every sort of historical optimism; but he energetically repudiates the ordinary pessimism, which is the result of degenerate or enfeebled instincts of decadence. He preaches with youthful enthusiasm the triumph of a tragic culture, introduced by an intrepid rising generation, in which the spirit of ancient Greece might be born again. He rejects the pessimism of Schopenhauer, for he already abhors all renunciation; but he seeks a pessimism of healthiness, one derived from strength, from exuberant power, and he believes he has found it in the Greeks.

Georg Brandes

History demonstrates that participants in financial markets are susceptible to waves of optimism. Excessive optimism shows the seeds of its own reversal in the form of imbalances that tend to grow over time.

Alan Greenspan

The past doesn't change no matter how much time you spend thinking about it. Good and bad all add up to the whole. Take away one piece, no matter how small, and the whole changes. Whether it's optimism, pessimism or fatalism, I don't spend my time wishing for the past to be different so present would be different, too. I control my future with what I choose now.

Megan Hart

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.

Samuel Ullman

Invest at the point of maximum pessimism.

John Templeton

That's why our comics are important: they're pointing things out and laughing at the same time. There have been horrible, horrible times in history. They're mostly horrible times. But not to laugh? Not to find humor in something like dark optimism/bright pessimism - I think that's sad, frankly.