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

Value in relation to price, not price alone, must determine your investment decisions. If you look to Mr Market as a creator of investment opportunities (where price departs from underlying value), you have the makings of a value investor. If you insist on looking to Mr Market for investment guidance however, you are probably best advised to hire someone else to manage your money.

We are not so brazen as to believe that we can perfectly calibrate valuation; determining risk and return for any investment remains an art not an exact science

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

Great investments don't just knock on the door and say "buy me".

If you are predisposed to be patient, disciplined and psychologically appreciate the idea of buying bargains, then you're likely to be good at it. If you have a need for action, if you want to be involved in the new and exciting technological breakthroughs of our time, that's great, but you're not a value investor, and you shouldn't be one.

There's no such thing as a value company. Price is all that matters. At some price, an asset is a buy, at another it's a hold, and at another it's a sell.