Quotes from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“I like to say, “Experience is what you got when you didn’t get what you wanted.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“Prices are too high” is far from synonymous with “the next move will be downward.” Things can be overpriced and stay that way for a long time . . . or become far more so.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“There are old investors, and there are bold investors, but there are no old bold investors.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“We have to practice defensive investing, since many of the outcomes are likely to go against us. It’s more important to ensure survival under negative outcomes than it is to guarantee maximum returns under favorable ones.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“There’s a big difference between probability and outcome. Probable things fail to happen—and improbable things happen—all the time.” That’s one of the most important things you can know about investment risk.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“Every once in a while, an up-or-down-leg goes on for a long time and/or to a great extreme and people start to say "this time it's different." They cite the changes in geopolitics, institutions, technology or behaviour that have rendered the "old rules" obsolete. They make investment decisions that extrapolate the recent trend. And then it turns out that the old rules still apply and the cycle resumes. In the end, trees don't grow to the sky, and few things go to zero.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“Here’s the key to understanding risk: it’s largely a matter of opinion.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“Being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being wrong.” So”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“little known and not fully understood; fundamentally questionable on the surface; controversial, unseemly or scary; deemed inappropriate for “respectable” portfolios; unappreciated, unpopular and unloved; trailing a record of poor returns; and recently the subject of disinvestment, not accumulation.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“Everything you needed to know in the years leading up to the crash could be discerned through awareness of what was going on in the present.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“Risk is incredibly important to investors. It’s also ephemeral and unmeasurable. All of this makes it very hard to recognize, especially when emotions are running high. But recognize it we must.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“The most dangerous thing is to buy something at the peak of its popularity. At that point, all favourable facts and opinions are already factored into its price and no new buyers are left to emerge”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“Once in a while, however, the future turns out to be very different from the past. It’s at these times that accurate forecasts would be of great value. It’s also at these times that forecasts are least likely to be correct. Some forecasters may turn out to be correct at these pivotal moments, suggesting that it’s possible to correctly”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“The biggest investing errors come not from factors that are informational or analytical, but from those that are psychological. Investor”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“If one is approached with a deal predicated on cycles having ceased to occur, remember that invariably that’s a losing bet.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“We conclude that most of the time, the future will look a lot like the past, with both up cycles and down cycles. There is a right time to argue that things will be better, and that's when the market is on its backside and everyone is selling things at giveaway prices. It's dangerous when the market's at record levels to reach for a positive rationalisation that has never held true in the past.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“There’s a big difference between probability and outcome. Probable things fail to happen—and improbable things happen—all the time.” That”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“Most people strive to adjust their portfolios based on what they think lies ahead. At the same time, however, most people would admit forward visibility just isn't that great. That's why I make the case for responding to the current realities and their implications, as opposed to expecting the future to be made clear.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“Voltaire: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” This”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“SETH KLARMAN: Most of these characteristics are not permanent. Something broadly accepted can become controversial or even taboo. Information can become more or less available. Thus, an asset class deemed close to efficient at one point may become quite inefficient at another. European”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“when risk bearing doesn’t work, it really doesn’t work, and people are reminded what risk’s all about.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“The correctness of a decision can’t be judged from the outcome. Nevertheless, that's how people assess it. A good decision is one that’s optimal at the time it’s made, when the future is by definition unknown. Thus, correct decisions are often unsuccessful, and vice versa.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“Risk means uncertainty about which outcome will occur and about the possibility of loss when the unfavorable ones do.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“If your behavior is conventional, you’re likely to get conventional results—either good or bad. Only if your behavior is unconventional is your performance likely to be unconventional, and only if your judgments are superior is your performance likely to be above average.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“The last four and a half years have been carefree, halcyon times for investors. That doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way. I’ll give Warren Buffett the last word, as I often do: “It’s only when the tide goes out that you find out who’s been swimming naked.” Pollyannas take note: the tide cannot come in forever.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“There's only one way to describe most investors: trend followers.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“It's worth noting that the assumption that something can't happen has the potential to make it happen, since people who believe it can't happen will engage in risky behaviour, and thus alter the environment.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“If everyone likes it, it's probably because it has been doing well. Most people seem to think that outstanding performance to dates presages outstanding future performance. Actually, it's more likely that outstanding future performance to date has borrowed from the future and thus presages subpar performance from her on out.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

“Selling for more than your asset’s worth. Everyone hopes a buyer will come along who’s willing to overpay for what they have for sale. But certainly the hoped-for arrival of this sucker can’t be counted on. Unlike having an underpriced asset move to its fair value, expecting appreciation on the part of a fairly priced or overpriced asset requires irrationality on the part of buyers that absolutely cannot be considered dependable.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor

About the author

Popular quotes

“Si hay algo para lo que resulte útil una formación literaria, es para dotarlo a uno de un sentido de la catástrofe. No hay nada como una imaginación vivida para desvitalizarle a uno el valor.”
― Sam Savage, quote from Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife

“Let your curiosity run away with you. Know that beyond every ordinary explanation there is a deeper and more exciting discovery to be made.”
― Julie Andrews Edwards, quote from The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles

“I'm sure you were mistaken," Yaicha says to her brush.

My ears pin back -
"MISTAKEN?
I know who Angie is, Yaicha.
I know who our father is, Yaicha.
He hurts people, he hurts you, you never do anything!" My claws scrape the wall paint.

She turns with soft rabbit eyes. "He'll kill me."

"He's already doing that!"
I am growling, grabbing her sleeve, "Every day, every day he rips you open,
chips off pieces week by week, till a few years from now you are not even a mouthful of sawdust.
A drawn-out killing.
Well, I'm tired of all of us doing nothing. He has to be stopped."

Yaicha's eyes have flinched a few times but soften again. "Nobody can stop him."

My teeth show.

"Nobody can stop him? Good.
To him I have always been
Nobody.”
― Thalia Chaltas, quote from Because I Am Furniture

“She's important to me. What you think-or want- isn't. I love her. And if I lose her over this, you'll regret it.”
― Jaci Burton, quote from The Perfect Play

“It's Lila--come on, Jack. She might be a little impulsive but that doesn't make her a sociopath.'
I swivelled my gaze to Jack, trying my best not to look like a sociopath.”
― Sarah Alderson, quote from Hunting Lila

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.