The dominant factors affecting control valuations are earning power (past and prospective) and asset values.

[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.

The future is never clear; you pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values.

With enough insider information and a million dollars, you can go broke in a year.

There are a few investment managers, of course, who are very good - though in the short run, it's difficult to determine whether a great record is due to luck or talent. Most advisors, however, are far better at generating high fees than they are at generating high returns. In truth, their core competence is salesmanship. Rather than listen to their siren songs, investors - large and small - should instead read Jack Bogle's The Little Book of Common Sense Investing.

A pack of lemmings looks like a group of rugged individualists compared with Wall Street when it gets a concept in its teeth.

Our goal is to find an outstanding business at a sensible price, not a mediocre business at a bargain price.