Targeting investment returns leads investors to focus on potential upside rather on downside risk ... rather than targeting a desired rate of return, even an eminently reasonable one, investors should target risk.

Value investing is simple to understand but difficult to implement. Value investors are not supersophisticated analytical wizards who create and apply intricate computer models to find attractive opportunities or assess underlying value. The hard part is discipline, patience, and judgment. Investors need discipline to avoid the many unattractive pitches that are thrown, patience to wait for the right pitch, and judgment to know when it is time to swing.

Why should the immediate opportunity set be the only one considered, when tomorrow's may well be considerably more fertile than today's?

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

Never stop reading. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.

There are only a few things investors can do to counteract risk: diversify adequately, hedge when appropriate, and invest with a margin of safety. It is a precisely because we do not and cannot know all the risks of an investment that we strive to invest at a discount. The bargain element helps to provide a cushion for when things go wrong.

Value investing is at its core the marriage of a contrarian streak and a calculator.