Benjamin Graham Pay Quotations

The value of any investment is, and always must be, a function of the price you pay for it.

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

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.

By refusing to pay too much for an investment, you minimize the chances that your wealth will ever disappear or suddenly be destroyed.

A great company is not a great investment if you pay too much for the stock.

The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator. This means ... that he should be able to justify every purchase he makes and each price he pays by impersonal, objective reasoning that satisfies him that he is getting more than his money's worth for his purchase.

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.