What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Discuss all general (i.e. non-personal) investing questions and issues, investing news, and theory.
TheGuru1
Posts: 68
Joined: Sat Dec 05, 2009 10:18 am

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by TheGuru1 »

"Investing is like boxing; if you don't like getting punched in the face once in a while, stay out of the ring!" -- TheGuru1
User avatar
cinghiale
Posts: 1365
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:37 pm
Location: A latare Mare Nostrum

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by cinghiale »

I'm surprised this hasn't made it yet:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
--Upton Sinclair

A good one to keep in mind if you find yourself going toe-to-toe with a stockbroker or "financial advisor" who wants your account or who wants to retain your account.
"We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are." Anais Nin | | "Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious." George Orwell
ZumZabo
Posts: 212
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2014 12:33 pm
Location: I'm in a secure location

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by ZumZabo »

"After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was the sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!" Edwin Lefevre
What makes me think I could start clean slated? The hardest to learn was the least complicated: Emily Saliers / And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know: Kerry Livgren
User avatar
cheese_breath
Posts: 11769
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2011 7:08 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by cheese_breath »

"I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better."
The surest way to know the future is when it becomes the past.
User avatar
Miriam2
Posts: 4383
Joined: Fri Nov 14, 2014 10:51 am

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by Miriam2 »

"A young investor's best ally - the time value of money." -- John Bogle
hudson
Posts: 7098
Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2007 9:15 am

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by hudson »

Image

one of the Babson Boulders (Carved about 1935)...Dogtown, MA

There's another quote that goes something like this.

"I'm more concerned for the return of my investment than the return on my investment."
Last edited by hudson on Fri Jan 29, 2016 5:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
meowcat
Posts: 769
Joined: Wed May 09, 2012 5:46 am

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by meowcat »

“Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are.”
James W. Frick
What the bold print givith, the fine print taketh away. | -meowcat
User avatar
Bustoff
Posts: 2033
Joined: Sat Mar 03, 2012 5:45 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by Bustoff »

"By periodically investing in an index fund, for example, the know-nothing investor can actually out-perform most investment professionals. Paradoxically, when "dumb" money acknowledges its limitations, it ceases to be dumb."
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1993.html
Dan999
Posts: 412
Joined: Mon May 24, 2010 1:23 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by Dan999 »

Not exactly right but something like this:
" Your investments are like a bar of soap. The more you touch it the smaller it gets."

Also like
"Don't risk what to have to get something you don't need."

And finally "If you have won the game, stop playing."

I am living proof that these are true. Fortunately, the lesson was not very expensive but I learned from it this year.

Dan999
Dan999
ZumZabo
Posts: 212
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2014 12:33 pm
Location: I'm in a secure location

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by ZumZabo »

Bustoff wrote:"By periodically investing in an index fund, for example, the know-nothing investor can actually out-perform most investment professionals. Paradoxically, when "dumb" money acknowledges its limitations, it ceases to be dumb."
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1993.html
+1!
That is brilliant! One of the most insightful and actionable quotes yet.
What makes me think I could start clean slated? The hardest to learn was the least complicated: Emily Saliers / And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know: Kerry Livgren
Eastwest
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Sep 03, 2013 11:17 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by Eastwest »

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." - John Maynard Keynes

"Diversification is about accepting good enough while missing out on great but avoiding terrible." - Ben Carlson
G3G4G5
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon Feb 03, 2014 1:10 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by G3G4G5 »

"Rich men don't talk about their money...."

"Dad, how much money does it take to become a pilot?"
"Why, all of it son!"

:)
ZumZabo
Posts: 212
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2014 12:33 pm
Location: I'm in a secure location

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by ZumZabo »

“You are not truly diversified until you own something you are really uncomfortable with”
– Peter Bernstein
What makes me think I could start clean slated? The hardest to learn was the least complicated: Emily Saliers / And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know: Kerry Livgren
User avatar
VictoriaF
Posts: 20122
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:27 am
Location: Black Swan Lake

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by VictoriaF »

This thread has run its course. (LadyGeek)

Victoria
Inventor of the Bogleheads Secret Handshake | Winner of the 2015 Boglehead Contest. | Every joke has a bit of a joke. ... The rest is the truth. (Marat F)
TSR
Posts: 1249
Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2012 9:08 am

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by TSR »

One that I first read here and have used a number of times since then is:

"You can shear the sheep many times, but you can only slaughter it once."
jginseattle
Posts: 1121
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2011 7:33 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by jginseattle »

ZumZabo wrote:“You are not truly diversified until you own something you are really uncomfortable with”
– Peter Bernstein
Here is another version...


In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.

- Robert Arnott
User avatar
DonCamillo
Posts: 1050
Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2013 9:27 pm
Location: Northern New Jersey

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by DonCamillo »

If it sounds too good to be true, assume it isn't true. (several variations on this quote)
Les vieillards aiment à donner de bons préceptes, pour se consoler de n'être plus en état de donner de mauvais exemples. | (François, duc de La Rochefoucauld, maxim 93)
User avatar
Goldfinger
Posts: 142
Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:31 am
Location: Sugar Land, Texas

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by Goldfinger »

"Quick buck" artists come and go with every bull market. The steady players make it through the bear markets."

Lou Mannheim (Wall Street)
"At cocktail parties lovely ladies would corner me and ask my opinion of the market, but alas, when they learned I was a bond man, they would quietly drift away." -- Sidney Homer/Salomon Bros
cheapedy
Posts: 70
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2011 2:44 am

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by cheapedy »

“When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience leaves with money and the man with money leaves with experience.”
Anonymous
warrends
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2016 10:39 am

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by warrends »

Two that I've just recently read, first one thanks to this forum:

"Human nature turns out to be a virtual Petrie dish of financially pathologic behavior."
- William Bernstein, 2014, page 11 in his "If You Can" essay at https://www.etf.com/docs/IfYouCan.pdf

"I found the road to wealth when I decided that a part of all earned was mine to keep."
- George Clayson, circa 1926, page 17 in "The Richest Man in Babylon" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1508524351


And something my Dad used to say all of the time:
" There's no such thing as a free lunch."
I still live by that. Or try to.
Topic Author
mevans154
Posts: 63
Joined: Mon Dec 21, 2015 3:05 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by mevans154 »

"Market forecasters will fill your ear but will never fill your wallet." - J. Bogle
"Be greedy when everyone is panicking, and panic when everyone else is greedy"... Couldn't agree more!!!
CWhea1775
Posts: 84
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2016 2:45 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by CWhea1775 »

“The investment management business (it should be a profession but is not) is built upon a simple and basic belief: Professional money managers can beat the market. That premise appears to be false.” Charles Ellis
LateStarter1975
Posts: 775
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2013 4:50 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by LateStarter1975 »

"The surest route to top-quartile returns is bottom-quartile expenses" - John Bogle
Debt is dangerous...simple is beautiful
TJSI
Posts: 401
Joined: Thu Jan 27, 2011 3:03 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by TJSI »

Mr Market is a manic depressive. ( I don't know who first said this.)

And he is off his meds today. (Added by me.)

TJSI
seamonkey
Posts: 194
Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:55 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by seamonkey »

Bank error in your favor! Collect $15.
User avatar
Miriam2
Posts: 4383
Joined: Fri Nov 14, 2014 10:51 am

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by Miriam2 »

From JW-Retired, advising an OP who asked for help on whether to leave a high-fee financial advisor -
JW-Retired wrote:IMO, high cost investing is close to madness. Are you mad sir? :D
User avatar
NoRoboGuy
Posts: 882
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:07 pm
Location: Alabama
Contact:

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by NoRoboGuy »

Besides my sig:

...you don’t need to hand over your financial assets to a Robo or other advisor for permanent babysitting. Yes, you need to have a plan. You might even decide to pay someone to help you build it. But, if it is actually a good one, then you should not need ongoing asset management services to implement it or to manage it. Otherwise, it is just not a good plan. - me
There is no free lunch.
wolf359
Posts: 3206
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2015 8:47 am

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by wolf359 »

"Lieutenant Dan got me invested in some kind of fruit company. So then I got a call from him, saying we don't have to worry about money no more. And I said, that's good! One less thing. "

-Forest Gump

Also,

"It's hard to go bankrupt if you don't owe any money."
- Not sure where I first heard this, but I say this a lot.
VinhoVerde
Posts: 90
Joined: Fri Nov 21, 2014 7:39 am

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by VinhoVerde »

Humans respond to incentives. All the rest is commentary.(I forget the source)
VinhoVerde
User avatar
munemaker
Posts: 4338
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:14 pm

Re: What is your favorite Financial Quote or Metaphor??

Post by munemaker »

1. "You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table. There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done." Kenny Rogers applies to investing too!

2. "A man who knows how much he is worth is not worth much." I think this may be from J.D. Rockerfeller when asked about his net worth.

3. "All hat, no cattle." A lot of people who are taken with flashy spenders do not understand wealth.

4. "Money don't get everything it's true. What it don't get i can't use." from the old Beatles song. I think it may have been written by Berry Gordy.

5. "A penny saved is a penny earned." Often attributed to Ben Franklin but actually derived from a 17th century proverb: "A penny spar'd is twice got."

6. "Shake your money maker." Ludacrus

7. "If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning." Aristotle Onassis There's a lot of truth to this!

8. “My formula for success is rise early, work late and strike oil.” Jed Clampet.

9. “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison
Post Reply