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

An investor calculates what a stock is worth, based on the value of its businesses.

In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.

The market is always making mountains out of molehills and exaggerating ordinary vicissitudes into major setbacks.

The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator. This means ... that he should be able to justify every purchase he makes and each price he pays by impersonal, objective reasoning that satisfies him that he is getting more than his money's worth for his purchase.

Only in the exceptional case, where the integrity and competence of the advisers have been thoroughly demonstrated, should the investor act upon the advice of others without understanding and approving the decision made.

The qualitative factors upon which most stress is laid are the nature of the business and the character of the management. These elements are exceedingly important, but they are also exceedingly difficult to deal with intelligently.