Same as Ever Quotes

“The mere idea of stability causes a smart and rational movement toward bidding asset prices up high enough to cause instability. Stability is destabilizing. Or, put another way: Calm plants the seeds of crazy. Always has, always will.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

“To me it’s obvious that the one thing you can’t measure, can’t predict, and can’t model in a spreadsheet is the most powerful force in all of business and investing—just like it’s the most powerful force in the military. Same in politics. Same in careers. Same in relationships. A lot of things don’t compute.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

“The numbers are easy to measure, easy to track, easy to formulate. It’s getting easier as almost everyone has cheap access to information. But the stories are often bizarre reflections of people’s hopes, dreams, fears, insecurities, and tribal affiliations. And they’re getting more bizarre as social media amplifies the most emotionally appealing views.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

“To suppose that the value of a common stock is determined purely by a corporation’s earnings discounted by the relevant interest rates and adjusted for the marginal tax rate is to forget that people have burned witches, gone to war on a whim, risen to the defense of Joseph Stalin and believed Orson Welles when he told them over the radio that the Martians had landed.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

“There is too much information in the world for everyone to calmly sift through the data, looking for the most rational, most correct answer. People are busy and emotional, and a good story is always more powerful and persuasive than ice-cold statistics.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

“Dealing with the math behind risk and uncertainty in general is difficult—something people have struggled with forever and always will. That something can be likely and not happen, or unlikely and still happen, is one of the world’s most important tricks.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

“The key thing is that unique minds have to be accepted as a full package, because the things they do well and that we admire cannot be separated from the things we wouldn’t want for ourselves or we look down upon.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

“A common storyline of history goes like this: Things get better, wealth increases, technology brings new efficiencies, and medicine saves lives. The quality of life goes up. But people’s expectations then rise by just as much, if not more, because those improvements also benefit other people around you, whose circumstances you anchor to. Happiness is little changed despite the world improving.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

“Change captures our attention because it’s surprising and exciting. But the behaviors that never change are history’s most powerful lessons, because they preview what to expect in the future. Your future. Everyone’s future.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

“a Republican at the state level, a Democrat at the local level, and a socialist at the family level.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Every few years there seems to be a declaration that markets don’t work anymore—that they’re all speculation or detached from fundamentals. But it’s always been that way. People haven’t lost their minds; they’re just searching for the boundaries of what other investors are willing to believe.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Something I’ve long thought true, and which shows up constantly when you look for it, is that people who are abnormally good at one thing tend to be abnormally bad at something else. It’s as if the brain has capacity for only so much knowledge and emotion, and an abnormal skill robs bandwidth from other parts of someone’s personality.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Benjamin Graham said, “The purpose of the margin of safety is to render the forecast unnecessary.” The more flexibility you have, the less you need to know what happens next.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Patience is often stubbornness in disguise.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Jason Zweig of The Wall Street Journal says there are three ways to be a professional writer: 1. Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich. 2. Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living. 3. Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Psychologist Amos Tversky once said that “the secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“because perfecting one skill comes at the expense of another skill that will eventually be critical to survival. The lion could be bigger”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist. Plan like a pessimist and dream like an optimist.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“If you understand the math behind compounding you realize the most important question is not “How can I earn the highest returns?” It’s “What are the best returns I can sustain for the longest period of time?”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Most successful people are just a walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Carl Jung had a theory called enantiodromia. It’s the idea that an excess of something gives rise to its opposite.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“There is a very common life cycle of greed and fear. It goes like this: First you assume good news is permanent. Then you become oblivious to bad news. Then you ignore bad news. Then you deny bad news. Then you panic at bad news. Then you accept bad news. Then you assume bad news is permanent. Then you become oblivious to good news. Then you ignore good news. Then you deny good news.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Economist Per Bylund once noted: “The concept of economic value is easy: whatever someone wants has value, regardless of the reason (if any).”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“My compliments to the general,” Patton says, “but please inform him that I do not care to drink with him or any other Russian son of a bitch.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“My friend Brent has a related theory about marriage: It only works when both people want to help their spouse while expecting nothing in return. If you both do that, you’re both pleasantly surprised.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“An average home was a third smaller than today’s, despite having more occupants. Food consumed 29 percent of an average household’s budget in 1950 versus 13 percent today. Workplace deaths were three times higher than today.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“The homeownership rate was 12 percentage points lower in 1950 than it is today.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Median hourly wages adjusted for inflation are nearly 50 percent higher today than in 1955.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Median family income adjusted for inflation was $29,000 in 1955. In 1965 it was $42,000. In 2021 it was $70,784.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

“Investor Charlie Munger once noted that the world isn’t driven by greed; it’s driven by envy.”
― Morgan Housel, Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes