There have been many value investors who have earned a good reputation for themselves over the years. From Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) to Walter Schloss and Peter Cundill all of these investors had their own styles but followed the main principles of value investing as laid out by Benjamin Graham.
Over the years, these investors have put out some informative and revealing quotes on the topic of value investing, all of which give some insight into their process and the temperament required to follow the value discipline.
Below are some of the best quotes, along with names of those that said them. I hope you’ll find this collection interesting; it was certainly interesting putting it together.
The best value investing quotes
"With so much attention being paid to the upside, it is easy to lose sight of the risk." –”‹ Seth Klarman (Trades, Portfolio)
“You don’t have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long time.” –”‹ Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio)
"Don’t be afraid to be a loner but be sure that you are correct in your judgment." –”‹ Walter Schloss
"Graham's wonderful sentence is an investor needs only two things: cash and courage. Having only one of them is not enough." –”‹ Seth Klarman
"To be a better investor, you have to stand on your own.You just can’t copy other people’s insights." –”‹ Li Lu
“You must have the discipline and temperament to resist your impulses. Human beings have precisely the wrong instincts when it comes to the markets. If you recognize this, you can resist the urge to buy into a rally and sell into a decline. It’s also helpful to remember the power of compounding. You don’t need to stretch for returns to grow your capital over the course of your life.” –”‹ Irving Kahn
“We go where there is value, not where everyone else goes. Sometimes the best value is where no one else is at.” –”‹ David Herro (Trades, Portfolio)
“Staying small is simply good business. It wouldn’t be fair to our customers if we had to spread our ideas too thin. There aren’t that many great companies.” –”‹ Bill Ruane
“For all my emphasis on the virtues of patience in value investment it has to go hand in hand with minute attention to the detail, with conviction and determination, otherwise patience is just futile endurance.” –”‹ Peter Cundill
“You never really know a stock until you own it.” –”‹ Walter Schloss
“If you buy all the stocks selling at or below two times earnings, you will lose money on half of them because instead of making profits they will actually lose money, but you will only lose a dollar or so a share at most. Then others will be mediocre performers. But the remaining big winners will go up and produce fabulous results and also ensure a good overall result.” –”‹ John Templeton
“Our quarterly earnings will jiggle.” –”‹ Henry Singleton
“In essence, the stock market represents three separate categories of business. They are, adjusted for inflation, those with shrinking intrinsic value, those with approximately stable intrinsic value, and those with steadily growing intrinsic value. The preference, always, would be to buy a long-term franchise at a substantial discount from growing intrinsic value.” –”‹ Michael Burry
“Ick investing means taking a special analytical interest in stocks that inspire a first reaction of ‘ick.’ I tend to become interested in stocks that by their very names or circumstances inspire unwillingness – and an ‘ick’ accompanied by a wrinkle of the nose on the part of most investors to delve any further.” –”‹ Michael Burry
“Someone asked me once if I could condense into five words the most important qualities needed for a good investor, and I replied: 'Motivation, humility, hard work, discipline.'” –”‹ Mark Mobius
