The banking business is no favorite of ours. When assets are twenty times equity - a common ratio in this industry - mistakes that involve only a small portion of assets can destroy a major portion of equity. And mistakes have been the rule rather than the exception at many major banks.
Warren BuffettI think the worst mistake you can make in stocks is to buy or sell based on current headlines.
Warren BuffettFailure comes from ego, greed, envy, fear, imitation. I have success not because I am smart, but because I am rational.
Warren BuffettFailing conventionally is the route to go; as a group, lemmings may have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press
Warren BuffettPeople who watch their weight, golf scores, and fuel bills seem to shun quantitative evaluation of their investment management skills although it involves the most important client in the world-themselves.
Warren BuffettI am out of step with present conditions. When the game is no longer played your way, it is only human to say the new approach is all wrong, bound to lead to trouble, and so on. On one point, however, I am clear. I will not abandon a previous approach whose logic I understand ( although I find it difficult to apply ) even though it may mean foregoing large, and apparently easy, profits to embrace an approach which I don't fully understand, have not practiced successfully, and which possibly could lead to substantial permanent loss of capital.
Warren Buffett