“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
“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
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” – Bruce Lee
“The average annual report is over 120 pages long. If earnings were calculated the same way for every company every year, you wouldn’t need 120 pages to tell people how earnings were calculated. It’s 120 reasons not to trust earnings.” – Joel Litman
“FASB has lost the concept of matching and driven a substantial amount of volatility within earnings, and in many cases unnecessarily so.” – Earnings Quality: Evidence from the Field (Dichev, Graham, Harvey, Rajgopal)
“When the financial situation changes, we must also be ready for very dramatic cultural changes in society” – Sadhguru
“Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.” – Buddha
“Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence –is the key to unlocking our potential” – Winston Churchill
“But if you have precise information as to a company’s present financial position and its past earnings record, you are better equipped to gauge its future possibilities. And this is the essential function and value of security analysis.” – Ben Graham, The Interpretation of Financial Statements, 1937
“Why are the financial statements so difficult? There have been too many cooks in the accounting rule kitchen. So many different influencers, influencing at different times for differing reasons. The result is a mish-mash of electives, estimates, and gross inconsistencies in both rules and application of financial reporting.” – Joel Litman
“I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.” – John D. Rockefeller
“As you get old, if you have earned a certain level of wisdom and insight into life, which the young are yet to earn, they look up to you. Then, you can somewhat be in the same space – you are on the first floor, leave them on the ground floor looking up to you.” – Sadhguru