To the man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

The cost of being a publicly traded stock has gone way, way up. It doesn't make sense for a little company to be public anymore. A lot of little companies are going private to be rid of these burdensome requirements.

Acknowledging what you don't know is the dawning of wisdom.

It’s waiting that helps you as an investor, and a lot of people just can’t stand to wait. If you didn’t get the deferred-gratification gene, you’ve got to work very hard to overcome that.

Accounting is a big subject and there are huge forces in play. The entire momentum of existing thinking and existing custom is in a direction that allows terrible follies to happen, and the terrible follies have terrible consequences.

And your brain doesn't naturally know how to think the way Zeckhauser knows how to play bridge. "for example," people do not react symmetrically to loss and gain. Well maybe a great bridge player like Zeckhauser does, but that's a trained response. Ordinary people, subconsciously affected by their inborn tendencies.

Avoid working directly under somebody you don't admire and don't want to be like.