Benjamin Graham Quotes

You don't know where a sport can take you, so I want to make sure that I have an education behind me in case things don't work out.

If you are deliberately trying to create a future that feels safe, you will willfully ignore the future that is likely.

As the future is never known with certainty, the evaluation of the prospective benefits requires the formation of expectations. An acceptable house, partner or job, then, is one that offers an expected stream of future benefit that has a value in excess of the option to continue to search for an even better alternative.

The argument can be made: Maybe you want to trust the government, but you shouldn't because you don't know where things are going to go in the future.

The more adaptability exists for a given kind of decision, the less risky it is to make plans for the future, and therefore the more likely it is that more people will make more plans in such areas.

Nobody can really guarantee the future. The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them and then make our plans with confidence.

In order to be in control, you have to have a definite plan for at least a reasonable period of time. So how, may I ask, can man be in control if he can't even draw up a plan for a ridiculously short period of time, say, a thousand years, and is, moreover, unable to ensure his own safety for even the next day?

An argument is made that there are just too many question marks about the near future; wouldn't it be better to wait until things clear up a bit? You know the prose: "Maintain buying reserves until current uncertainties are resolved," etc. Before reaching for that crutch, face up to two unpleasant facts: The future is never clear and you pay a very high price for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values.

Honestly, I could get in a car accident today and never play tennis again, and then I wouldn't have anything to fall back on. But fortunately enough, I do.

People have to decide, first of all, how they'd like to live, and how secure they want to be from disaster. After that, scientists can help determine what would be necessary to achieve that.

If you want the most reward you have to take the most risk.

Foresight is not about predicting the future, it's about minimizing surprise.

What you really want to do in investments is figure out what's important and knowable. If it's unimportant or unknowable you forget about it.

Think very carefully about what you want in life. Reckon with the risks.

The whole idea is not to figure out what you should do that will matter, but to make each thing you do reflect the values you want, because we don't know what's going to matter in the future

People don't expect to die tomorrow, but they do take out insurance, don't they?

Take the probability of loss times the amount of possible loss from the probability of gain times the amount of possible gain. That is what we're trying to do. It's imperfect, but that's what it's all about.

I've never counted my chickens before they've hatched.

No one has any idea what's going to happen. Not even Elon Musk. That's why he's building those rockets. He wants a 'Plan B' on another world.

Businesses are terrified. They have no idea what I'm going to do next.

If I look back after 10 weeks and say I really want to stay then maybe I can make that happen. If I say OK it was good, but I’m ready to go then I can go, but for now I’m taking it week by week.

This idea of anticipation is key to investing and to business generally. You can't wait for an opportunity to become obvious. You have to think, "Here's what other people and companies have done under certain circumstances. Now, under these new circumstances, how is this management likely to behave?"

No one ever thinks about what the hell is going to happen 25 years from now.

The reward is in the risk.

but can everyone simply choose the path he loves? someone has to take the ordinary jobs. all i know is, that worked for me. and it didn't work for other people i know to get a so-called safe job, because there's no such thing anymore. the only thing that stays constant is the idea that people have to escape.