Less surprises

Obviously, we can never precisely predict the timing of cash flows in and out of a business or their exact amount. We try, therefore, to keep our estimates conservative and to focus on industries where business surprises are unlikely to wreak havoc on owners.

- Warren Buffett

The worst business

The worst sort of business is one that grows rapidly, requires significant capital to engender the growth, and then earns little or no money. Think airlines. Here a durable competitive advantage has proven elusive ever since the days of the Wright Brothers.

- Warren Buffett

The risk is ...

When reward is at its pinnacle, risk is near at hand.

- John Bogle

Don't expect miracles

It's in the nature of stock markets to go way down from time to time. There's no system to avoid bad markets. You can't do it unless you try to time the market, which is a seriously dumb thing to do. Conservative investing with steady savings without expecting miracles is the way to go.

- Charles Munger

Differ from crowd

If you want to have a better performance than the crowd, you must do things differently from the crowd.

- Sir John Templeton

Where it should begin

All investment evaluations should begin by measuring risk, especially reputational.

- Charlie Munger

Chains of habit

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

- Warren Buffett