I regard the amount of brainpower going into money management as a national scandal. When some idiot would get rich, they'd say, 'Well, old Charlie was out in the field playing the big brass tuba on the day it rained gold.' A lot of people have become rich lately who were playing the tuba on the day it rained gold.

Harvard and Yale concentrated with venture capitalists that got the best calls and brainpower. Very few firms made most of the money, and they made it in just a few periods. Everyone else returned between mediocre and lousy. When returns happened, envy rippled through institutional money management. The amount invested in venture capital went up 10 times post-1999. That later money was lost very quickly. It will happen again. I don't know anyone who successfully resists this stuff. It becomes a new orthodoxy.

I think gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but civilized people don't buy gold, they invest in productive businesses.

Chris Davis [of the Davisfunds] has a temple of shame. He celebrates the things they did that lost them a lot of money. What is also needed is a temple of shame squared for things you didn't do that would have made you rich. Forgetting your mistakes is a terrible error if you are trying to improve your cognition. Reality doesn't remind you. Why not celebrate stupidities in both categories?

You must force yourself to consider opposing arguments. Especially when they challenge your best loved ideas.

Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.

All intelligent investing is value investing - acquiring more that you are paying for. You must value the business in order to value the stock.