John Templeton

“I have learned that the great opportunities are the places that have been neglected, where other people are not looking.”

“There will be bear markets about twice every 10 years and recessions about twice every 10 or 12 years but nobody has been able to predict them reliably. So the best thing to do is to buy when shares are thoroughly depressed and that means when other people are selling.”

“The influence on stock prices are so numerous and so complex that no person has ever been able to predict the trend of stock prices with consistent success.”

“When people are desperately trying to sell, I buy. When people are desperately trying to buy, I sell. It has worked out very well over the years.”

“In all my 55 years on Wall Street, before I retired to do something vastly more important, I was never able to say when the market would go up or down. Nor was I able to find anybody on Earth whose opinion I would value on the subject of when it would go up and down.”

“Diversification is a safety factor that is essential because we should be humble enough to admit we can be wrong.”

“See the investment world as an ocean and buy where you get the most value for your money.”

“I never in all my life bought a stock because I liked it. I bought it because it was a cheaper bargain than any similar stock I would buy anywhere in the rest of the world.”

“In all my 60 years in the stock market, I never found anyone whose opinion of what the stock market would do next week or next month was worth heeding.”

“Whenever you get a wild excess on the upside, the following correction doesn’t just go back to normal; it almost always falls way below normal.”

“Through reluctance to sell, more than one investor has avoided the capital gains tax but lost the capital gain itself.”

“A lifetime of investment research has taught me to become more and more humble about making predictions.”

“It appears that capital gains are one of the few remaining ways in which an enterprising American can build or augment a fortune.”

“The difficulty of determining what any stock is really worth is very great indeed. No two security analysts will agree on the worth of a stock, or even on the definition of the word.”