You get in a lot of trouble when you start putting fictitious numbers.

Never risk what you have and need for what we don't have and don't need.

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

Success in investing doesn’t correlate with I.Q. Once you are above the level of 25; once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.

If you don’t feel comfortable making a rough estimate of the asset’s future earnings, just forget it and move on. No one has the ability to evaluate every investment possibility. But omniscience isn’t necessary; you only need to understand the actions you undertake.

The latter qualification brings to mind a fellow who applied for a job and stated he had twenty years of experience-which was corrected by a former employer to read "one year's experience-twenty times.

I certainly have no desire to sell a good controlled business run by people I like and admire, merely to obtain a fancy price. However, specific conditions may cause the sale of one operating unit at some point.