Choose clients as you would friends.

Once you start doing something bad, then it's easy to take the next step - and in the end, you're a moral sewer.

It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.

When we were young, there weren't very many smart people in the investment world. You should have seen the people in the bank trust departments. Now, there are armies of smart people at private investment funds, etc . If there were a crisis now, there would be a lot more people with a lot of money ready to take advantage.

It's my guess that something like 5% of GDP goes to money management and itsattendant friction. I define it broadly - annuities, incentive pay, all trading, etc. Nobody else has used figures that high, but that's my guess. Worst of all, the people doing this are among the best and the brightest. Hundreds and thousands of engineers, etc. are going into hedge funds and investment banking. That is not an intelligent allocation of the brainpower of the civilization.

What's the best way to get a good spouse? The best single way is to deserve a good spouse because a good spouse is by definition not nuts.

The basic concept of value to a private owner and being motivated when you're buying and selling securities by reference to intrinsic value instead of price momentum - I don't think that will ever be outdated.