“If the as-reported P/E ratios were even remotely reliable for investing, why do we witness HIGHEST P/Es in 2001 and 2009, exactly when we should have been BUYING stocks? The problem with the P/E is not the ‘P.’ The problem is the ‘E.’” – Joel Litman
“We became rich without compromising our integrity. In fact, we credit our integrity with significantly contributing to our success.” – Thomas J. Stanley
“An individual’s level of consciousness is determined by the principles to which he or she is committed. To maintain progress in consciousness, there can be no wavering from principle, or the individual will fall back to a lower level.” – David Hawkins
“The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.” – Warren Buffett
“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.” – Peter Drucker
“Fair value accounting creates a level of volatility and change, even though nothing in the business seems to have changed. That is the new frontier of confusion.” – Earnings Quality: Evidence from the Field (Dichev, Graham, Harvey, Rajgopal)
“Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes.” – Napoleon Hill
“‘Don’t hate the player, hate the game.’ It’s not management’s fault that the financial statements are a mess. It’s the accounting rule-makers that have made them that way.” – Joel Litman
“CFOs believe that 60% of earnings management is income-increasing, and 40% is income-decreasing.” – Earnings Quality: Evidence from the Field (Dichev, Graham, Harvey, Rajgopal)
“Tomorrow is an idea for which we must plan, but we can never live it. Whatever you need to do and experience in your life, you can only experience it today. You never experience tomorrow; it is just your imagination, and yesterday is only your memory.” – Sadhguru
“There’s really no secret about our approach. We keep moving forward — opening up new doors and doing new things — because we’re curious. And curiosity keeps leading us down new paths…” – Walt Disney
“The totals of assets and liabilities appearing on the balance sheet supply only a rough indication of the size of the company. Balance sheet totals maybe readily inflated by excessive values set upon intangibles, and in many cases also the fixed assets are carried at a highly exaggerated figure.” – Ben Graham, The Interpretation of Financial Statements, 1937
“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.” – Charles R. Swindoll
“Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business.” – Warren Buffett
“How can a P/E tell you anything about the valuation of a company if the E in the P/E is garbage? Garbage in, garbage out, garbage investing.” – Joel Litman
“Valuation is an art, not a science. Because the value of a business depends on numerous variables, it can typically be assessed only within a range.” – Seth Klarman
“It takes inner discipline and surrender of attitudes not to fall into the temptation of identifying with a position about world events.” – David R. Hawkins
“…inconsistency undermined the IASB’s credibility: ‘We are not only interested in setting proper standards – we also have an interest in the proper application of our standards.’” – Hans Hoogervorst, Chairman IASB
“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” – Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com)
“I started out by betting $1 on the bad hands and a maximum of $10 on the good hands. It drove them crazy because they were looking to make some big money. I disciplined and paced myself. It was a lesson about managing money that stuck with me forever after.” – Edward Thorp, Stock Market and Black Jack Expert from the book “Market Wizards” by Jack Schwager