Pressure to produce over the short term - a gun to the head of everyone - encourages excessive risk taking which manifests itself in several ways - fully invested posture at all times, the use of leverage, and a market centric orientation that makes it difficult to stand apart from the crowd and take a long term perspective.

If another person were to enter the building, it would once again be empty.

You need humility to say 'I might be wrong.'

The government can reasonably rely on debt ratings when it forms programs to lend money to buyers of otherwise unattractive debt instruments.

Analysts recommendations may not produce good results. In part this is due to the pressure placed on these analysts to recommend frequently rather than wisely.

A tipping point is invisible, as we just saw in Greece. In most situations, everything appears fine until it's not fine, until, for example, no one shows up at a Treasury auction.

You need to balance arrogance and humilitywhen you buy anything, it's an arrogant act. You are saying the markets are gyrating and somebody wants to sell this to me and I know more than everybody else so I am going to stand here and buy it. I am going to pay an 1/8th more than the next guy wants to pay and buy it. That's arrogant. And you need the humility to say 'but I might be wrong.' And you have to do that on everything