The Best Advice of All Time

The Sep 2007 issue of Money magazine has an interesting article titled "The Best Advice of All Time" consisting of 20 rules for success from some of the smartest investors (and other people) who have ever lived. I won't reproduce the entire article here but will list the quotes for you to ponder.

1. When you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it, this is knowledge. -Confucious

2. He that is overcautious will accomplish little. -Friedrich von Schiller

3. For age and want, save while you may; no morning sun lasts a whole day. -Benjamin Franklin

4. It is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow and not to venture all eggs in one basket. -Miguel de Cervantes

5. Asset allocation is the overwhelmingly dominant contributor to total return. -Gary Brinston, Brian Singer, and Gilbert Beebower

6. The best way to own common stocks is through an index fund. -Warren Buffett

7. It never was my thinking that made the big money. It was always my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! -Edwin Lefevre

8. The real key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them. -Peter Lynch

9. Performance comes and goes, but costs roll on forever. -Jack Bogle

10. Fashion is made to become unfashionable. -Cocos Chanel

11. If a business is worth a dollar and I can buy it for 40 cents, something good may happen to me. -Warren Buffett

12. The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. -St. Augustine

13. There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know. -Harry Truman

14. It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. -Eleanor Roosevelt

15. As life closes in on someone who has borrowed far too much on the strength of far too little income, there are no fire escapes. -John Kenneth Galbraith

16. In every house of marriage there's room for an interpreter. -Stanley Kunitz

17. Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. -Pablo Picasso

18. The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward. -John Maynard Keynes

19. The time is always right to do the right thing. -Martin Luther King Jr.

20. A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart. -Jonathan Swift