“There is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side”

Comparing Paper Trading vs. Real Trading
“Are you a good shot?” “I can snap the stem of a wine glass at twenty paces” “That’s all well, but can you snap the stem of a wine glass while the wine glass is pointing a loaded pistol straight at your heart?”

“A man must believe in himself and his judgement if he expects to make a living at this game. That is why I don’t believe in tips. If I buy stocks on Smith’s tip, I must sell those stocks on Smith’s tip. I am depending on him”

“Speculation is a hard and trying business, and a speculator must be on the job all the time or he’ll soon have no job to be on”

“The more I made, the more I spent. This is the usual experience with most men. No, not necessarily with easy-money pickers, but with every human being who is not a slave of the hoarding instinct. Some men, like old Russell Sage, have the money-making and the money-hoarding instinct equally well developed, and of course they die disgustingly rich”

“If a stock doesn’t act right, don’t touch it; because being unable to tell precisely what is wrong, you cannot tell which way it is going. No diagnosis, no prognosis. No prognosis, no profit”

“The big money was not in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements-that is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend”

“It was never thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!”

“Me who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn”

“He had not only the courage of his convictions but the intelligent patience to sit tight. Disregarding the big swing and trying to jump in and out was fatal to me”

“Without faith in his own judgement no man can go very far in this game. That is about all I have learned-to study general conditions, to take a position and stick to it”

“The big men of the Street are as prone to wishful thinkers as the politicians or the plain suckers. I myself can’t work that way. In a speculator such an attitude is fatal.”

“Sell down to the sleeping point (own so much cotton, can’t sleep thinking about it, wearing me out)”

“It sounds very easy to say that all you have to do is to watch the tape, establish your resistance points and be ready to trade along the line of least resistance as soon as you determined it”

“Prices, like everything else, move along the line of least resistance”

“A man cannot be convinced against his own convictions, but he can be talked into a state of uncertainty and indecision, which is even worse, for that means that he cannot trade with confidence and comfort”

“It is simple arithmetic to prove that it is a wise thing to have the big bet down only when you win, and when you lose to lose only a small exploratory bet”

“Of all the speculative blunders there are few greater than trying to average a losing game”

“Always sell what shows you a loss and keep what shows you a profit”

“He must fear that his loss may develop into a much bigger loss, and hope his profit may become a big profit”

“What does a man do when he sets out to make the stock market pay for a sudden need? Why, he merely hopes. He gambles.. he is after immediate profit. He cannot afford to wait.. he hugs the fallacy that he is merely taking a fifty-fifty chance.. particularly on purchases made at the height of the bull market just before a moderate reaction. It certainly is no way to trade”

“A great many smashes by brilliant men can be traced directly to the swelled head – an expensive disease everywhere to everybody, but particularly in Wall Street to a speculator”

“Whenever I have lost money in the stock market I have always considered that I have learned something; that if I have lost money I have gained experience, so that the money really went for a tuition fee”

“A trader.. must also know himself and provide against his own weaknesses”

“The game does not change and neither does human nature”

“A man does not swear eternal allegiance to either the bull or the bear side. His concern lies with being right”

“Another thing to bear in mind is this: Never try to sell at the top. It isn’t wise. Sell after a reaction if there is no rally”