Value investors have to be patient and disciplined, but what I really think is you need not to be greedy. If you're greedy and you leverage, you blow up. Almost every financial blow up is because of leverage.

The avoidance of loss is the surest way to ensure a profitable outcome.

You probably would not choose to dine at a restaurant whose chef always ate elsewhere. I do eat my own cooking, and I don't "dine out" when it comes to investing.

Below, we itemize some of the quite different lessons investors seem to have learned as of late 2009 - false lessons, we believe. To not only learn but also effectively implement investment lessons requires a disciplined, often contrary, and long-term-oriented investment approach. It requires a resolute focus on risk aversion rather than maximizing immediate returns, as well as an understanding of history, a sense of financial market cycles, and, at times, extraordinary patience.

To achieve long-term success over many financial market and economic cycles, observing a few rules is not enough. Too many things change too quickly in the investment world for that approach to succeed. It is necessary instead to understand the rationale behind the rules in order to appreciate why they work when they do and don't when they don't.

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

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