The central principle of investment is to go contrary to the general opinion, on the grounds that if everyone agreed about its merits, the investment is inevitably too dear and therefore unattractive.

They offer me neither food nor drink - intellectual nor spiritual consolation... [Conservatism] leads nowhere; it satisfies no ideal; it conforms to no intellectual standard, it is not safe, or calculated to preserve from the spoilers that degree of civilization which we have already attained.

Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.

He had one illusion - France; and one disillusion - mankind, including Frenchmen.

Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.

If farming were to be organised like the stock market, a farmer would sell his farm in the morning when it was raining, only to buy it back in the afternoon when the sun came out.

A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.