Thousands of important and intelligent men have never been able to grasp the principle of comparative advantage or believe it even after it was explained to them

Self-deception ultimately explains Japan's plight. The Japanese have never accepted that change is in their interest - and not merely a response to U.S. criticism.

Mea culpa, mea culpa. MIT and Wharton and University of Chicago created the financial engineering instruments, which, like Samson and Delilah, blinded every CEO. They didn't realize the kind of leverage they were doing and they didn't understand when they were really creating a real profit or a fictitious one.

But the trouble is that he [Alan Greenspan] had been an Ayn Rander. You can take the boy out of the cult but you can't take the cult out of the boy.

Good questions outrank easy answers.

The sad truth is that it is precisely those who disagree most with the hypothesis of efficient market pricing of stocks, those who pooh-pooh beta analysis and all that, who are least able to understand the analysis needed to test that hypothesis.

There is something in people; you might even call it a little bit of a gambling instinct… I tell people investing should be dull. It shouldn't be exciting. Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.