The government can indefinitely control both short-term and long-term interest rates.

A margin of safety is achieved when securities are purchased at prices sufficiently below underlying value to allow for human error, bad luck, or extreme volatility in a complex, unpredictable and rapidly changing world.

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

A simple rule applies: if you don't quickly comprehend what a company is doing, then management probably doesn't either.

The latest trade of a security creates a dangerous illusion that its market price approximates its true value. This mirage is especially dangerous during periods of market exuberance. The concept of "private market value" as an anchor to the proper valuation of a business can also be greatly skewed during ebullient times and should always be considered with a healthy degree of skepticism.

When all feels calm and prices surge, the markets may feel safe; but, in fact, they are dangerous because few investors are focusing on risk.

Warren Buffett once wrote that value investing is like an inoculation--it either takes or it doesn't--and when you explain to somebody what it is and how it works and why it works and show them the returns, either they get it or they don't.