In the old legend the wise men finally boiled down the history of mortal affairs into a single phrase: 'This too will pass.'

No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the "margin of safety" - never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be - can you minimize your odds of error.

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

Every corporate security may be best viewed, in the first instance, as an ownership interest in, or a claim against, a specific business enterprise.

Those with the enterprise lack the money and those with the money lack the enterprise to buy stocks when they are cheap.

Diversification is an established tenet of conservative investment.

In the financial markets, hindsight is forever 20/20, but foresight is legally blind. And thus, for most investors, market timing is a practical and emotional impossibility.