Ludwig von Mises Quotes

Knowledge is only one ingredient on arriving at a stock's proper price. The other ingredient, fully as important as information, is sound judgment.

When it comes to investments, I have to go to someone else to understand them, but then I have to make a judgment. I can't do that if I don't have a basic understanding myself.

When you're an investor, you can look at the quantitative and qualitative elements of an investment, but there's a third aspect: What you feel in your gut.

We reviewed our process at Greylock and discovered that the best investments are non-obvious enough that they result in a mixed vote by our partnership.

An old friend of mine, an economist by trade, once explained to me that the statistical definition of 'dilemma' is 49.9% in favor and 50.1% against. If the gap is greater, there is no dilemma, because the answer is clear.

Before you invest, you must ensure that you have realistically assessed your probability of being right and how you will react to the consequences of being wrong.

Investment must be rational; if you can't understand it, don't do it.

I have no use whatsoever for projections or forecasts. They create an illusion of apparent precision. The more meticulous they are, the more concerned you should be. We never look at projections, but we care very much about, and look very deeply at, track records. If a company has a lousy track record, but a very bright future, we will miss the opportunity.

About the only useful thing my economics degree taught me was that, in all decisions in life, you have to do a cost-benefit analysis.

I have a knack - and still do - where I can look at a guy and tell you if he's going to draw you money or not. That's very difficult to do. I haven't met too many people who can do that.

When you see a 'Shark fight' erupt, we aggressively want to understand what we are committing our money toward.

Choice is everything. Unfortunately, we do a lot of fluff. There's three boxes - profile, money, heart - and if the project ticks two of those, you do it.

I've said many times that I'm not one of those people who check statistics, follows history, and says, 'If I do this, what will happen.'

Data drives success. That is how we began our success with eSpeed. It was always based on the data.

Investigate carefully before you invest. Spend as much time researching the investment as you spend earning the money.

You're looking for a mispriced gamble. That's what investing is. And you have to know enough to know whether the gamble is mispriced. That's value investing.

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.

Berkshire was built on the eternal verities: basic mathematics, basic horse sense, basic fear, and basic diagnosis of human nature to make predictions regarding human behavior. We stuck to the basics with a certain amount of discipline and it has worked out quite well.

So if you are evaluating others (or yourself!) in the investment field, think out some standards - apply them - interpret them.

If stocks are attractive and you don't buy, you don't just look like an idiot, you are an idiot.

If you can be sure of being right only 55 percent of the time, you can go down to Wall Street and make a million dollars a day. If you can't be sure of being right even 55 percent of the time, why should you tell other people they are wrong?

First of all I trust my own instinct, experience that I gained over years and feeling when the moment is right for buying shares. That is what one calls intuition.

I think I'm determined. And I think if you're determined, you're right. Your behavior is exactly the same when you're stubborn, except then you're wrong. And so, there's times when I'm wrong, and I'd say, "Well, you were the dark side of determined." But I think determination, you know, it's like have an idea, think about the idea, the risks involved. What does it take to get from here to there? And then once you make the choice, you just keep going.

We live in reference to past experience and not to future events, however inevitable.

We make investment decisions based on our evaluation of the most profitable combination of probabilities.