110+ Benjamin Graham Quotes On Investing, Time And Value Investing Guru

Benjamin Graham was an American investor, economist, and professor. He is widely known as the "father of value investing" and is considered to be one of the most influential investors of all time. Graham is credited with pioneering the concept of value investing, which involves investing in stocks that are undervalued by the market. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Benjamin Graham on investing, time, value investing guru.

Top 10 Benjamin Graham Quotes

1. Successful investing is about managing risk, not avoiding it.
2. The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
3. In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.
4. In the world of securities, courage becomes the supreme virtue after adequate knowledge and a tested judgment are at hand.
5. The true investor... will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operation results of his companies.
6. If you are shopping for common stocks, choose them the way you would buy groceries, not the way you would buy perfume.
7. 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.
8. An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return.
9. The chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions.
10. Buy not on optimism, but on arithmetic.

Benjamin Graham Short Quotes

• The essence of investment management is the management of risks, not the management of returns.
• Always buy your straw hats in the Winter
• At heart, "uncertainty" and "investing" are synonyms.
• High valuations entail high risks.
• The investor's chief problem - and even his worst enemy - is likely to be himself.
• Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.
• It is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forecasts.
• Avoid second-quality issues in making up a portfolio unless they are demonstrable bargains.
• Whether we like it or not, government intervention in the face of surplus is here to stay.
• Why should the cotton growers suffer if there is shortage of wheat?

Benjamin Graham Quotes About Investing

No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the "margin of safety" - never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be - can you minimize your odds of error. — Benjamin Graham

Successful investing professionals are disciplined and consistent and they think a great deal about what they do and how they do it. — Benjamin Graham

The best way to measure your investing success is not by whether you're beating the market but by whether you've put in place a financial plan and a behavioral discipline that are likely to get you where you want to go. — Benjamin Graham

To be an investor you must be a believer in a better tomorrow. — Benjamin Graham

The intelligent investor should recognize that market panics can create great prices for good companies and good prices for great companies. — Benjamin Graham

Diversification is an established tenet of conservative investment. — Benjamin Graham

Price fluctuations have only one significant meaning for the true investor. They provide him with an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal. — Benjamin Graham

Speculators often prosper through ignorance; it is a cliché that in a roaring bull market knowledge is superfluous and experience is a handicap. But the typical experience of the speculator is one of temporary profit and ultimate loss — Benjamin Graham

To have a true investment, there must be a true margin of safety. And a true margin of safety is one that can be demonstrated by figures, by persuasive reasoning, and by reference to a body of actual experience. — Benjamin Graham

There is a close logical connection between the concept of a safety margin and the principle of diversification. — Benjamin Graham

Benjamin Graham Quotes About Time

Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble... to give way to hope, fear and greed. — Benjamin Graham

Observation over many years has taught us that the chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of good business conditions. The purchasers view the good current earnings as equivalent to 'earning power' and assume that prosperity is equivalent to safety. — Benjamin Graham

Most businesses change in character and quality over the years, sometimes for the better, perhaps more often for the worse. The investor need not watch his companies' performance like a hawk; but he should give it a good, hard look from time to time. — Benjamin Graham

In the financial markets, hindsight is forever 20/20, but foresight is legally blind. And thus, for most investors, market timing is a practical and emotional impossibility. — Benjamin Graham

The determining trait of the enterprising (or active, or aggressive) investor is his willingness to devote time and care to the selection of securities that are both sound and more attractive than the average. — Benjamin Graham

If General Motors is worth $60 a share to an investor it must be because the full common-stock ownership of this gigantic enterprise as a whole is worth 43 million (shares) times $60, or no less than $2,600 million. — Benjamin Graham

The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices. — Benjamin Graham

Undervaluations caused by neglect or prejudice may persist for an inconveniently long time, and the same applies to inflated prices caused by over-enthusiasm or artificial stimulants. — Benjamin Graham

It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals. — Benjamin Graham

Speculative stock movements are carried too far in both directions, frequently in the general market and at all times in at least some of the individual issues. — Benjamin Graham

Benjamin Graham Quotes About People

By developing your discipline and courage, you can refuse to let other people's mood swings govern your financial destiny. In the end, how your investments behave is much less important than how you behave. — Benjamin Graham

Wall Street people learn nothing and forget everything. — Benjamin Graham

People who invest make money for themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers. And that, in turn, is why Wall Street perennially downplays the durable virtues of investing and hypes the gaudy appeal of speculation. — Benjamin Graham

The people of the United States will not tolerate another deep depression that arises not from any lack of natural resources, productive capacity or man and brain power, but solely from imperfections in the functioning of the system of finance capitalism. — Benjamin Graham

To achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior results is harder than it looks. — Benjamin Graham

Buy when most people, including experts, are pessimistic, and sell when they are actively optimistic. — Benjamin Graham

If I have noticed anything over these 60 years on Wall Street, it is that people do not succeed in forecasting what`s going to happen to the stock market. — Benjamin Graham

there is a tendency in part of Wall Street people to pay excessive attention to the most recent figures and the present financial picture. — Benjamin Graham

Thousands of people have tried, and the evidence is clear: The more you trade, the less you keep. — Benjamin Graham

Benjamin Graham Quotes About Stocks

The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists. — Benjamin Graham

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

The distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern. — Benjamin Graham

Stocks can be dynamite. — Benjamin Graham

A speculator gambles that a stock will go up in price because somebody else will pay even more for it. — Benjamin Graham

As in roulette, same is true of the stock trader, who will find that the expense of trading weights the dice heavily against him. — Benjamin Graham

The thing that I have been emphasizing in my own work for the last few years has been the group approach. To try to buy groups of stocks that meet some simple criterion for being undervalued-regardless of the industry and with very little attention to the individual company. — Benjamin Graham

Although there are good and bad companies, there is no such thing as a good stock; there are only good stock prices, which come and go. — Benjamin Graham

Real investment risk is measured not by the percent that a stock may decline in price in relation to the general market in a given period, but by the danger of a loss of quality and earnings power through economic changes or deterioration in management. — Benjamin Graham

In an ideal world, the intelligent investor would hold stocks only when they are cheap and sell them when they become overpriced, then duck into the bunker of bonds and cash until stocks again become cheap enough to buy. — Benjamin Graham

Benjamin Graham Quotes About Speculate

Traditionally the investor has been the man with patience and the courage of his convictions who would buy when the harried or disheartened speculator was selling. — Benjamin Graham

Confusing speculation with investment is always a mistake. — Benjamin Graham

You must never delude yourself into thinking that you're investing when you're speculating. — Benjamin Graham

It is worth pointing out that assuredly not more than one person out of a hundred who stayed in the market after after 1925 emerged from it with a net profit and that the speculative losses taken were appalling. — Benjamin Graham

Stock speculation is largely a matter of A trying to decide what B, C and D are likely to think-with B, C and D trying to do the same. — Benjamin Graham

Never mingle your speculative and investment operations in the same account nor in any part of your thinking. — Benjamin Graham

Benjamin Graham Quotes About Price

Cartels have spread and will spread as long as the world lacks an effective mechanism by which balanced expansion may be achieved without a resulting disruption of prices. — Benjamin Graham

The margin of safety is always dependent on the price paid. It will be large at one price, small at some higher price, nonexistent at some still higher price. — Benjamin Graham

In security analysis the prime stress is laid upon protection against untoward events. We obtain this protection by insisting upon margins of safety, or values well in excess of the price paid. — Benjamin Graham

A stock is not just a ticker symbol or an electronic blip; it is an ownership interest in an actual business, with an underlying value that does not depend on its share price. — Benjamin Graham

The investor should be aware that even though safety of its principal and interest may be unquestioned, a long term bond could vary widely in market price in response to changes in interest rates. — Benjamin Graham

The ideal form of common stock analysis leads to a valuation of the issue which can be compared with the current price to determine whether or not the security is an attractive purchase. — Benjamin Graham

Mr. Market does not always price stocks the way an appraiser or a private buyer would value a business. Instead, when stocks are going up, he happily pays more than their objective value; and, when they are going down, he is desperate to dump them for less than their true worth. — Benjamin Graham

Whenever the investor sold out in an upswing as soon as the top level of the previous well-recognized bull market was reached, he had a chance in the next bear market to buy back at one third (or better) below his selling price. — Benjamin Graham

It's nonsensical to derive a price/earnings ratio by dividing the known current price by unknown future earnings. — Benjamin Graham

Calculate a stock's price/earnings ratio yourself, using Graham's formula of current price divided by average earnings over the past three years. — Benjamin Graham

Benjamin Graham Famous Quotes And Sayings

The investor with a portfolio of sound stocks should expect their prices to fluctuate and should neither be concerned by sizable declines nor become excited by sizable advances. He should always remember that market quotations are there for his convenience, either to be taken advantage of or to be ignored. — Benjamin Graham

It requires strength of character in order to think and to act in opposite fashion from the crowd and also patience to wait for opportunities that may be spaced years apart. — Benjamin Graham

In the short-run, the market is a voting machine - reflecting a voter-registration test that requires only money, not intelligence or emotional stability - but in the long- run, the market is a weighing machine. — Benjamin Graham

The intelligent investor is likely to need considerable will power to keep from following the crowd. — Benjamin Graham

Always remember that market quotations are there for convenience, either to be taken advantage of or to be ignored. — Benjamin Graham

The defensive (or passive) investor will place chief emphasis on the avoidance of serious mistakes or losses. His second aim will be freedom from effort, annoyance, and the need for making frequent decisions. — Benjamin Graham

Though business conditions may change, corporations and securities may change, and financial institutions and regulations may change, human nature remains the same. Thus the important and difficult part of sound investment, which hinges upon the investor's own temperament and attitude, is not much affected by the passing years. — Benjamin Graham

Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of Safety. — Benjamin Graham

Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business do not translate into obvious profits for investors. — Benjamin Graham

Unusually rapid growth cannot keep up forever; when a company has already registered a brilliant expansion, its very increase in size makes a repetition of its achievement more difficult. — Benjamin Graham

The purchase of a bargain issue presupposes that the market's current appraisal is wrong, or at least that the buyer's idea of value is more likely to be right than the market's. In this process the investor sets his judgement against that of the market. To some this may seem arrogant or foolhardy. — Benjamin Graham

The market is always making mountains out of molehills and exaggerating ordinary vicissitudes into major setbacks. — Benjamin Graham

In most cases the favorable price performance will be accompanied by a well-defined improvement in the average earnings, in the dividend, and in the balance-sheet position. Thus in the long run the market test and the ordinary business test of a successful equity commitment tend to be largely identical. — Benjamin Graham

A defensive investor can always prosper by looking patiently and calmly through the wreckage of a bear market. — Benjamin Graham

The purpose of this book is to supply, in the form suitable for laymen, guidance in the adoption and execution of an investment policy. — Benjamin Graham

No statement is more true and better applicable to Wall Street than the famous warning of Santayana: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it". — Benjamin Graham

Many progressive economists insist that gold is now in essentially the same position as silver and that the arguments the simon-pure gold advocates use against the white metal can be directed with equal effect against their own fetish. — Benjamin Graham

To enjoy a reasonable chance for continued better than average results, the investor must follow policies which are (1) inherently sound and promising, and (2) not popular on Wall Street. — Benjamin Graham

The world has not learned the technique of balanced expansion without the resultant commercial and financial congestion. — Benjamin Graham

Before you place your financial future in the hands of an adviser, it's imperative that you find someone who not only makes you comfortable but whose honesty is beyond reproach. — Benjamin Graham

While enthusiasm may be necessary for great accomplishments elsewhere, on Wall Street it almost invariably leads to disaster — Benjamin Graham

Only in the exceptional case, where the integrity and competence of the advisers have been thoroughly demonstrated, should the investor act upon the advice of others without understanding and approving the decision made. — Benjamin Graham

The utility, or intrinsic value of gold as a commodity is now considerably less than in the past; its monetary status has become extraordinarily ambiguous; and its future is highly uncertain. — Benjamin Graham

The investor who permits himself to be stampeded or unduly worried by unjustified market declines in his holdings is perversely transforming his basic advantage into a basic disadvantage. — Benjamin Graham

Successful investment may become substantially a matter of techniques and criteria that are learnable, rather than the product of unique and incommunicable mental powers. — Benjamin Graham

The qualitative factors upon which most stress is laid are the nature of the business and the character of the management. These elements are exceedingly important, but they are also exceedingly difficult to deal with intelligently. — Benjamin Graham

Wall Street has a few prudent principles; the trouble is that they are always forgotten when they are most needed. — Benjamin Graham

The chief obstacle to success lies in the stubborn fact that if the favorable prospects of a concern are clearly apparent they are almost always reflected already in the current price of the stock. Buying such an issue is like betting on a topheavy favorite in a horse race. The chances may be on your side, but the real odds are against you. — Benjamin Graham

The existence of such a war chest might go far to strengthen our prestige and frighten off any would be assailant. — Benjamin Graham

It is no difficult trick to bring a great deal of energy, study, and native ability into Wall Street and to end up with losses instead of profits. These virtues, if channeled in the wrong directions, become indistinguishable from handicaps. — Benjamin Graham

Even the most conservative must realize that the recent transformation of surplus from an individual to a national disaster implies a scathing indictment of our capitalist system as it has now developed. — Benjamin Graham

The stock market resembles a huge laundry in which institutions take in large blocks of each others washing ... without rhyme or reason. — Benjamin Graham

Instead of passing blithely over into that Promised Land, flowing almost literally with milk and honey, it may be our destiny to wander a full 40 years or more in the wilderness of doubt and divided sentiments. — Benjamin Graham

Intelligent investment is more a matter of mental approach than it is of technique. A sound mental approach toward stock fluctuations is the touchstone of all successful investment under present-day conditions. — Benjamin Graham

In nine companies out of ten the factor of fluctuation has been a more dominant and important consideration in the matter of investment than has the factor of long-term growth or decline — Benjamin Graham

Both a priori reasoning and experience teach us that as as these funds grow larger the geometrical rate of growth by compound interest ultimately defeats itself. — Benjamin Graham

To establish the right price for a stock, the market must have adequate information, but it by no means follows that is the market has this information it will thereupon establish the right price. — Benjamin Graham

When somebody asserts that a stock has an earning power of so much, I am sure that the person who hears him doesn't know what he means, and there is a good chance that the man who uses it doesn't know what it means. — Benjamin Graham

The idea of storage as a solution of economic problems at least has the support of common sense.It is diametrically opposed to the topsy-turvy Alice-in-Wonderland reasoning that has marked so much of our depression thinking and policy. — Benjamin Graham

If we assume that there are normal or standard income results to be obtained from investing money in securities, then the role of the adviser can be more readily established. He will use his superior training and experience to protect his clients against mistakes and to make sure that they obtain the results to which their money is entitled. — Benjamin Graham

The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate. — Benjamin Graham

The investor has a right to expect good results to flow from a consistent and courageous application of the principle of buying after the market has declined substantially and selling after it has had a spectacular rise. But he cannot expect to reduce this principle to a simple and foolproof formula, with profits guaranteed and no anxious periods. — Benjamin Graham

The Reservoir system will function not only as an equalizer of business conditions, but also as a national store to meet further emergencies, such as war and drought, and-most important of all-as the concrete means of developing a steadily higher living standard for all. — Benjamin Graham

The money cost of the reservoir plan literally fades into insignificance when it is compared with the financial burden which the great depression imposed on the nation. — Benjamin Graham

The value of the security analyst to the investor depends largely on the investor's own attitude. If the investor asks the analyst the right questions, he is likely to get the right or at least valuable answers. — Benjamin Graham

Good managements produce a good average market price, and bad managements produce bad market prices. — Benjamin Graham

There is no reason to feel any shame in hiring someone to pick stocks or mutual funds for you. But there's one responsibility that you must never delegate. You, and no one but you, must investigate whether an adviser is trustworthy and charges reasonable fees. — Benjamin Graham

There is something paradoxical in the fact that by establishing an export market we subject our entire domestic production to the vagaries of that market. — Benjamin Graham

The Reservoir plan is an engineering mechanism applied to the field of economics, and in its essence it has nothing to do with democracy or any other political philosophy. — Benjamin Graham

Life Lessons by Benjamin Graham

1. Benjamin Graham taught the importance of investing with a long-term perspective, emphasizing the need to focus on value rather than speculation.
2. He also advocated for diversifying investments, as well as for the use of margin of safety to protect against losses.
3. Finally, he stressed the importance of understanding the underlying fundamentals of a company before investing, rather than simply relying on market trends.