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

The overwhelming majority of people are comfortable with consensus, but successful investors tend to have a contrarian bent.

As Graham, Dodd and Buffett have all said, you should always remember that you don't have to swing at every pitch. You can wait for opportunities that fit your criteria and if you don't find them, patiently wait. Deciding not to panic is still a decision.

Costs and liabilities are rarely overstated.

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

Value investors should completely exit a security by the time it reaches full value; owning overvalued securities is the realm of speculators.

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.