If you look closely enough at anything, you will see that there is nothing more exciting than the truth.
Richard Feynman
Tweet
This is the source.
All other aspects and characteristics of science can be understood directly when we understand that observation is the ultimate and final judge of the truth of an idea.
Richard Feynman
Tweet
This is the source.
The principle that observation is the judge imposes a severe limitation to the kind of questions that can be answered. They are limited to questions that you can put this way: “If I do this, what will happen?†There are ways to try it and see. Questions like, “Should I do this?†and “What is the value of this?†are not of the same kind.
Richard Feynman
Tweet
This is the source.
So what we call scientific knowledge today is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty. Some of them are most unsure; some of them are nearly sure; but none is absolutely certain.
Richard Feynman
Tweet
This is the source.
Some people say, “How can you live without knowing?†I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. That is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know.
Richard Feynman
Tweet
This is the source.
This freedom to doubt is an important matter in the sciences and, I believe, in other fields. It was born of a struggle. It was a struggle to be permitted to doubt, to be unsure. And I do not want us to forget the importance of the struggle and, by default, to let the thing fall away. I feel a responsibility as a scientist who knows the great value of a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, and the progress made possible by such a philosophy, progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought. I feel a responsibility to proclaim the value of this freedom and to teach that doubt is not to be feared, but that it is to be welcomed as the possibility of a new potential for human beings. If you know that you are not sure, you have a chance to improve the situation. I want to demand this freedom for future generations.
Richard Feynman
Tweet
This is the source.
Throughout all the ages, men have been trying to fathom the meaning of life. They realize that if some direction or some meaning could be given to the whole thing, to our actions, then great human forces would be unleashed. So, very many answers have been given to the question of the meaning of it all. But they have all been of different sorts. And the proponents of one idea have looked with horror at the actions of the believers of another—horror because from a disagreeing point of view all the great potentialities of the race were being channeled into a false and confining blind alley. In fact, it is from the history of the enormous monstrosities that have been created by false belief that philosophers have come to realize the fantastic potentialities and wondrous capacities of human beings. The dream is to find the open channel. What, then, is the meaning of it all? What can we say today to dispel the mystery of existence? If we take everything into account, not only what the ancients knew, but also all those things that we have found out up to today that they didn't know, then I think that we must frankly admit that we do not know. But I think that in admitting this we have probably found the open channel. Admitting that we do not know, and maintaining perpetually the attitude that we do not know the direction necessarily to go, permit a possibility of alteration, of thinking, of new contributions and new discoveries for the problem of developing a way to do what we want ultimately, even when we do not know what we want.
Richard Feynman
Tweet
This is the source.
That something is unscientific is not bad; there is nothing the matter with it. It is just unscientific. And scientific is limited, of course, to those things that we can tell about by trial and error.
Richard Feynman
Tweet
This is the source.
So in life, in gaiety, in emotion, in human pleasures and pursuits, and in literature and so on, there is no need to be scientific, there is no reason to be scientific. One must relax and enjoy life.
Richard Feynman
Tweet
This is the source.
This is in the attitude of mind of the populace, that they have to have an answer and that a man who gives an answer is better than a man who gives no answer, when the real fact of the matter is, in most cases, it is the other way around.
Richard Feynman
Tweet
This is the source.
[I]f you have unreasonable expectations of other people they will continually disappoint you. But if you can learn to find joy from whatever people have to offer, life is like a candy store. Most people are givers, but they don't want anyone telling them what to give. Once you accept that reality, life is far more pleasant.
Scott Adams
Tweet
This is the source.
What goes unsaid eventually goes unthought.
Steve Sailer
Tweet
A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He know that she was old, and not over-well built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and refitted, even though this should put him to great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely though so many voyages and weathered so many storms, that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such a way he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.
W. J. Clifford
What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of the death of those men. It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship, but the sincerity of his conviction can in nowise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts.
Tweet
If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.
Epictetus
Tweet
I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine.
Bruce Lee
Tweet
Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.
Dwight Eisenhower
Tweet
Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom.
William Penn
Tweet
Being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being wrong.
Anonymous
Tweet
Risk means more things can happen than will happen.
Elroy Dimson
Tweet
Beating the market matters, but limiting risk matters just as much. Ultimately, investors have to ask themselves whether they are interested in relative or absolute returns. Losing 45 percent while the market drops 50 percent qualifies as market outperformance, but what a pyrrhic victory this would be for most of us.
Seth Klarman
Tweet
Before trying to compete in the zero-sum world of investing, you must ask yourself whether you have good reason to expect to be in the top half.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
[T]o achieve superior investment results, you have to hold nonconsensus views regarding value, and they have to be accurate.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
The key turning point in my investment management career came when I concluded that because the notion of market efficiency has relevance, I should limit my efforts to relatively inefficient markets where hard work and skill would pay off best.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
An accurate estimate of intrinsic value is the essential foundation for steady, unemotional and potentially profitable investing.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
[N]o asset is so good that it can't become a bad investment if bought at too high a price. And there are few assets so bad that they can't be a good investment when bought cheap enough.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
"Prices are too high" is far from synonymous with "the next move will be downward."
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
But every investor who's unwilling to throw in the towel on outperformance, and who chooses to deviate from the index in its pursuit, will have periods of significant underperformance. In fact, since many of the best investors stick most strongly to their approach—and since no approach will work all the time—the best investors can have some of the greatest periods of underperformance.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
When you boil it all down, it's the investor's job to intelligently bear risk for profit. Doing it well is what separates the best from the rest.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
[G]reat investors are those who take risks that are less than commensurate with the returns they earn.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
[L]oss is what happens when risk meets adversity.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
"[T]his time it's different." These four words should strike fear—and perhaps suggest an opportunity for profit—for anyone who understands the past and knows it repeats. Thus, it's essential that you be able to recognize this form of error when it arises.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
When things are going well, extrapolation introduces great risk. Whether it's company profitability, capital availability, price gains, or market liquidity, things that inevitably are bound to regress toward the mean are often counted on to improve forever.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
When things are going well and prices are high, investors rush to buy, forgetting all prudence. Then, when there's chaos all around and assets are on the bargain counter, they lose all willingness to bear risk and rush to sell. And it will ever be so.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
I've recently boiled down the main risks in investing to two: the risk of losing money and the risk of missing opportunity. It's possible to largely eliminate either one, but not both. In an ideal world, investors would balance these two concerns.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
Assets become overpriced because of investor behavior that overrates their merit and carries them aloft. This process shouldn't be expected to come to a halt when the price has risen to the “right†level or when you've sold it because you feel it's priced too high. Usually, the freight train rumbles on quite a bit further, and price judgments are much more likely to look wrong at first than right. Although understandable, this can be very hard to live with.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
Mastery over the human side of investing isn't sufficient for success, but combining it with analytical proficiency can lead to great results.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
[S]kepticism and pessimism aren't synonymous. Skepticism calls for pessimism when optimism is excessive. But it also calls for optimism when pessimism is excessive.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
The process of intelligently building a portfolio consists of buying the best investments, making room for them by selling lesser ones, and staying clear of the worst. The raw materials for the process consist of (a) a list of potential investments, (b) estimates of their intrinsic value, (c) a sense for how their prices compare with their intrinsic value, and (d) an understanding of the risks involved in each, and of the effect their inclusion would have on the portfolio being assembled.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
A high-quality asset can constitute a good or bad buy, and a low-quality asset can constitute a good or bad buy. The tendency to mistake objective merit for investment opportunity, and the failure to distinguish between good assets and good buys, get most investors into trouble.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
[T]here aren't always great things to do, and sometimes we maximize our contribution by being discerning and relatively inactive. Patient opportunism—waiting for bargains—is often your best strategy.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
You simply cannot create investment opportunities when they're not there. The dumbest thing you can do is to insist on perpetuating high returns—and give back your profits in the process.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
Predictions are most useful when they correctly anticipate change. If you predict that something won't change and it doesn't change, that prediction is unlikely to earn you much money. But accurately predicting change can be very profitable.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
Randomness (or luck) plays a huge part in life's results, and outcomes that hinge on random events should be viewed as different from those that do not.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
[M]any important financial phenomena follow long cycles, meaning those who experience an extreme event often retire or die off before the next recurrence.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
The superior investor never forgets that the goal is to find good buys, not good assets.
Howard Marks
Tweet
This is the source.
Find something you like? Get a new inspiring quote every day!
Get the free Daily Quote by email:
You should follow me on twitter here.