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We will never again understand nature as well as Greek philosophers did. A general explanation of common phenomena in terms of a few all-embracing principles no longer satisfies us. We know too much.

– John Pierce

In investing, there is no degree of difficulty. If something is staring you right in the face and the easiest decision in the world, the payoff can be huge. And we get paid, not for jumping over 7-foot bars, but for stepping over 1-foot bars.

– Warren Buffett

What you should learn when you make a mistake because you did not anticipate something is that the world is difficult to anticipate. That’s the correct lesson to learn from surprises: that the world is surprising.

– Daniel Kahneman

Intelligent individuals learn from every thing and every one; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers.

– Socrates

Time is the dominant factor in gambling. Risk and time are opposite sides of the same coin, for if there were no tomorrow there would be no risk. Time transforms risk, and the nature of risk is shaped by the time horizon: the future is the playing field.

– Peter Bernstein

The first theorem of the financial instability hypothesis is that the economy has financing regimes under which it is stable, and financing regimes in which it is unstable. The second theorem of the financial instability hypothesis is that over periods of prolonged prosperity, the economy transits from financial relations that make for a stable system to financial relations that make for an unstable system. In particular, over a protracted period of good times, capitalist economies tend to move from a financial structure dominated by hedge finance units to a structure in which there is large weight to units engaged in speculative and Ponzi finance.

Hedge financing units are those which can fulfill all of their contractual payment obligations by their cash flows… Speculative finance units are units that can meet their payment commitments on “income account” on their liabilities, even as they cannot repay the principal out of income cash flows… For Ponzi units, the cash flows from operations are not sufficient to fulfill either the repayment of principal or the interest due on outstanding debts by their cash flows from operations.

– Hyman Minsky

“Art is pleasure but invention is treasure. What is more important to society: a sheep in formaldehyde or a paper clip?”

– Trevor Baylis

Many investors mistakenly establish an investment goal of achieving a specific rate of return. Setting a goal, unfortunately, does not make that return achievable. Indeed, no matter what the goal, it may be out of reach. Stating that you want to earn, say, 15 percent a year, does not tell you a thing about how to achieve it. Investment returns are not a direct function of how long or hard you work or how much you wish to earn. A ditch digger can work an hour of overtime for extra pay, and a piece worker earns more the more he or she produces. An investor cannot decide to think harder or put in overtime in order to achieve a higher return. All an investor can do is follow a consistently disciplined and rigorous approach; over time the returns will come.

– Seth Klarman, Margin Of Safety

Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. However difficult life may seem there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.

– Stephen Hawking