Almost no one will accept responsibility for his or her role in precipitating a crisis: not leveraged speculators, not willfully blind leaders of financial institutions, and certainly not regulators, government officials, ratings agencies or politicians.

Most investors are primarily oriented toward return, how much they can make and pay little attention to risk, how much they can lose.

The prevailing view has been that the market will earn a high rate of return if the holding period is long enough, but entry point is what really matters.

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

The way to maximize outcome is to focus on the process.

If you've just stared into the abyss, quickly forget it: the lessons of history can only hold you back.

Warren Buffett likes to say that the first rule of investing is "Don't lose money," and the second rule is, "Never forget the first rule." I too believe that avoiding loss should be the primary goal of every investor. This does not mean that investors should never incur the risk of any loss at all. Rather "don't lose money" means that over several years an investment portfolio should not be exposed to appreciable loss of principal.