First, many in Wall Street - a community in which quality control is not prized - will sell investors anything they will buy.

To invest successfully, you need not understand beta, efficient markets, modern portfolio theory, option pricing or emerging markets. You may, in fact, be better off knowing nothing of these. That, of course, is not the prevailing view at most business schools, whose finance curriculum tends to be dominated by such subjects. In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses - How to Value a Business, and How to Think About Market Prices.

Forecasts usually tell us more of the forecaster than of the forecast

I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.

A hyperactive stock market is the pickpocket of enterprise.

I don't want to give a lecture to this body that's out there. You know, I mean, having had the heart attack, I want to get it back functioning. And as a practical matter, I mean if you were Bear Stearns, and you were a shareholder, you know, you lost 90 to 95 percent of your money. A good many lost their jobs. They lost very cushy lives, many of them.

If you can't communicate and talk to other people and get across your ideas, you're giving up your potential.