Benjamin Graham Quotes

151 Sourced Quotes

The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.

Benjamin Graham
It is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forecasts.

Benjamin Graham
Nearly everyone interested in common stocks wants to be told by someone else what he thinks the market is going to do. The demand being there, it must be supplied.

Benjamin Graham
The genuine investor in common stocks does not need a great equipment of brain and knowledge, but he does need some unusual qualities of character

Benjamin Graham
Basically, price fluctuations have only one significant meaning for the true investor. They provide him with an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal. At other times he will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operating results of his companies.

Benjamin Graham
There is something paradoxical in the fact that by establishing an export market we subject our entire domestic production to the vagaries of that market.

Benjamin Graham
Certain common-sense consideration relate to the criterion of normal or standard results mentioned above. Our basic thesis is this: If the investor is to rely chiefly on the advice of others in handling his funds, then either (a) he must limit himself and his advisers strictly to standard, conservative, and even un imaginative forms of investment or (b) he must have an unusually intimate and favorable knowledge of the person who is going to direct his funds into other channels; for only to the extent that the investor himself grows in knowledge and competence and therefore becomes qualified to pass independent judgement on the recommendations of others can he be receptive to less conventional suggestions from his advisers.

Benjamin Graham
When somebody asserts that a stock has an earning power of so much, I am sure that the person who hears him doesn't know what he means, and there is a good chance that the man who uses it doesn't know what it means.

Benjamin Graham
The Reservoir system will function not only as an equalizer of business conditions, but also as a national store to meet further emergencies, such as war and drought, and-most important of all-as the concrete means of developing a steadily higher living standard for all.

Benjamin Graham
Wall Street has a few prudent principles; the trouble is that they are always forgotten when they are most needed.

Benjamin Graham
Whether we like it or not, government intervention in the face of surplus is here to stay.

Benjamin Graham
An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return.

Benjamin Graham
It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals.

Benjamin Graham
Both a priori reasoning and experience teach us that as as these funds grow larger the geometrical rate of growth by compound interest ultimately defeats itself.

Benjamin Graham
Have the courage of your knowledge and experience. If you have formed a conclusion from the facts and if you know your judgment is sound, act on it – even though others may hesitate or differ.

Benjamin Graham
The function of the margin of safety is, in essence, that of rendering unnecessary an accurate estimate of the future.

Benjamin Graham
While enthusiasm may be necessary for great accomplishments elsewhere, on Wall Street it almost invariably leads to disaster

Benjamin Graham
The intelligent investor is likely to need considerable will power to keep from following the crowd.

Benjamin Graham
Unusually rapid growth cannot keep up forever; when a company has already registered a brilliant expansion, its very increase in size makes a repetition of its achievement more difficult.

Benjamin Graham
Why should the cotton growers suffer if there is shortage of wheat?

Benjamin Graham
In the world of securities, courage becomes the supreme virtue after adequate knowledge and a tested judgment are at hand.

Benjamin Graham
I am more and more impressed with the possibilities of history's repeating itself on many different counts. You don't get very far in Wall Street with the simple, convenient conclusion that a given level of prices is not too high.

Benjamin Graham
Abnormally good or abnormally bad conditions do not last forever.

Benjamin Graham
A stock is not just a ticker symbol or an electronic blip; it is an ownership interest in an actual business, with an underlying value that does not depend on its share price.

Benjamin Graham
Instead of passing blithely over into that Promised Land, flowing almost literally with milk and honey, it may be our destiny to wander a full 40 years or more in the wilderness of doubt and divided sentiments.

Benjamin Graham