In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

Investing in a market where people believe in efficiency is like playing bridge with someone who has been told it doesn't do any good to look at the cards.

There is no substitute for a local newspaper that is doing its job.

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

Knowing the edge of your competency is important. If you think you know more than you do, you will get in trouble.

I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.

I wouldn't want to manufacture cigarettes. But if I owned - we do own Costco. Do they sell them? Yes. So I don't have a problem owning stock in that. But I just wouldn't want to - I wouldn't want to do it myself. I basically think, if anything is sufficiently antisocial, society should do something about it. But that's a separate question. But - and I don't think there's any company that I have seen that's 100 percent pure.