5 Quotes To Remember From The World’s Best Investors

Even the world’s top-class investors have made mistakes during their careers, but with years of practice and patience, wisdom is rewarded. Not only have some of these names gone on to write their own books and theses on the sphere of investing, but they have amassed fortunes along the way.

So without further ado, here are some of their best quotes.

Benjamin Graham

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Just as mentioned above, it can often be the case that investors make mistakes early on in their investing journey, be it speculating, under diversifying, over diversifying, not practicing patience, or attempting to time the market. These lessons can be expensive and cost us early on but investing is a multi-decade journey, so it’s important for us to be aware of shortcomings and practice better investment management going forward. 

Scott Galloway

“Most of my big wins have been stocks in great companies that I just invested in and then ignored for a decade or longer.”

Time is of the essence. No investor has ever created life-changing wealth overnight. It doesn’t take monitoring your investments every day to be world-class, it just takes the necessary research prior to the buy, checking in every so often to ensure the long-term thesis is intact, and then letting the rest unfold. 

Peter Thiel

“Monopoly is the condition of every successful business.”

In his book ‘Zero to One’, Peter Thiel goes into depth about how the most successful businesses of all time shared a key attribute — a monopolistic-like power, or at least an extensive competitive advantage. This is one of the key traits to look for in a business so that it can maintain its competitive moat over time and remain differentiated — in a good way — from new players that might want to take market share.

Cathie Wood

“The strongest bull markets I’ve been in are built on walls of worry.”

This holds true. Throughout the U.S. stock markets history, indexes have always gone on to surpass previous all-time highs — innovation and new business formation have always led stock markets higher. It serves as a reminder that bear markets, boom, and busts come and go, but the long-term vision remains the same. When markets are in turmoil, investors should stick to their regular investing strategy if that’s the method they use as it can lead to significant outsized returns once given the time to play out.

Mohnish Pabrai

“It is the performance of the business that matters.”

Not all stocks are created equal — find the winners and stick with them — nothing else is as important. A business needs solid fundamentals, strong leadership, and the ability to execute and corner a valuable market. That’s exactly what we do at MyWallSt and it has proven over and over to lead to outsized returns.