Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.

When the brothel burns down, even the pretty girls have to run out.

The key to success is emotional stability.

The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs.

Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.

You've got the right - you've got a wonderful person with Sheila Bair, most of the viewers have never heard of Sheila Bair. [She] has taken eight percent of the deposits in the United States and seamlessly moved those over to sound institutions which in turn have gotten more capital, ended up, it's been a magnificent job.She'll never get a golden parachute or any severance pay or anything. She's done a great job. We've got some great public servants. We have I think the right people in there to get the job done, and then they need more tools.

None of this means, however, that a business or stock is an intelligent purchase simply because it is unpopular; a contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling. Unfortunately, Bertrand Russell's observation about life in general applies with unusual force in the financial world: "Most men would rather die than think. Many do."