Following what everyone else is doing is rarely a way to get rich.

Acknowledge the complexity of the world and resist the impression that you easily understand it. People are too quick to accept conventional wisdom, because it sounds basically true and it tends to be reinforced by both their peers and opinion leaders, many of whome have never looked at whether the facts support the received wisdom. It's a basic fact of life that many things "everybody knows" turn out to be wrong.

The basic skills of math, English and writing are not enough, ... You must develop a basic system of values to form and guide the use of these skills. The true test will not be what you learned in college, but how you used what you learned.

You can no longer buy commodities at Merrill Lynch. My guess is many analysts and even executives are too young to know how profitable a hot commodities market can be. They will soon.

I was poor once, I didn't like it, I don't want to be poor again.

I learned very early in my investing careers: I better not invest in what I want. I better invest in what's happening in the world. Otherwise I'll be broke - dead broke.

Bottoms in the investment world don't end with four-year lows; they end with 10- or 15-year lows.