The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.

Always buy your straw hats in the Winter

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.

The chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions.

By developing your discipline and courage, you can refuse to let other people's mood swings govern your financial destiny. In the end, how your investments behave is much less important than how you behave.

The most striking thing about Graham's discussion of how to allocate your assets between stocks and bonds is that he never mentions the word "age".

The intelligent investor should recognize that market panics can create great prices for good companies and good prices for great companies.