When your views are truly contrarian, they are inevitably uncomfortable. Courage and the ability to withstand pain are required.

The balance between confidence and humility is best learned through extensive experience and mistakes.

One of the most important analytic tools when assessing an investment is an intellectually advantaged disparate view. This includes knowing more and perceiving the situation better than others do. It is also critical to have a keen understanding of what the market expectations for any investment truly are. Thus, the process by which a disparate perception, when correct, becomes consensus should lead to meaningful profit. Understanding market expectation is at least as important as, and often different from fundamental knowledge.

Time and again, in every market cycle I have witnessed, the extremes of emotion always appear, even among experienced investors. When the world wants to buy only [bonds], you can almost close your eyes and [buy] stocks.

Brokerage firms don't sell customers stock so much as they sell those horrible mutual funds

In the 1950s and 1960s, the heroes were the long-term investors; today the heroes are the wise guys.

I was happier when pursuing success than I was when savoring its fruits; the attraction, perhaps the addiction, was in the process, as much as in its end.