Cicero's words also increased my personal satisfaction by supporting my long-standing rejection of a conventional point of view.

I think the notion...that liquidity is this - of tradable common stock - is a great contributor to capitalism - I think that is mostly twaddle... The liquidity gives us these crazy booms, which have many problems as well as virtues.

Is there such thing as a cheerful pessimist? That's what I am.

I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don't believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody's that smart.

The normal expectancy of the average investor - for example, the pension funds of AT&T or IBM - is 6% for a long time.

Some people seem to think there's no trouble just because it hasn't happened yet. If you jump out the window at the 42nd floor and you're still doing fine as you pass the 27th floor, that doesn't mean you don't have a serious problem. I would want to address the problem right now.

Finding a single investment that will return 20% per year for 40 years tends to happen only in dreamland. In the real world, you uncover an opportunity, and then you compare other opportunities with that. And you only invest in the most attractive opportunities. That's your opportunity cost. That's what you learn in freshman economics. The game hasn't changed at all. That's why Modern Portfolio Theory is so asinine.