The Long and the Short of It - Finance and Investment for Normally Intelligent People Who Are Not in Quotes

“But it is a common mistake to emphasise what you can measure at the expense of more important things that you can’t. It is generally better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.”
― John Kay, The Long and the Short of It (International edition): A guide to finance and investment for normally intelligent people who aren’t in the industry

“An asset is worth what someone is willing to pay for it; and the value of an asset is the cash it will generate over its life.”
― John Kay, The Long and the Short of It - Finance and Investment for Normally Intelligent People Who Are Not in

“People often say that shareholders ‘own’ the company. They don’t, as you will find out if you turn up at Apple’s spectacular new headquarters campus at Cupertino or Berkshire’s small office suite in Omaha, Nebraska, to assert your ‘ownership’. What shareholders own is their shares, and ownership of shares confers a variety of rights. The value of a share is the value of these rights.”
― John Kay, The Long and the Short of It (International edition): A guide to finance and investment for normally intelligent people who aren’t in the industry

“Three simple rules - pay less, diversify more and be contrarian - will serve almost everyone well.”
― John Kay, The Long and the Short of It - Finance and Investment for Normally Intelligent People Who Are Not in

“Value investing was once the purchase of tangible assets at levels below their market value. Value investing today is buying sustainable competitive advantages at a good price.”
― John Kay, The Long and the Short of It - Finance and Investment for Normally Intelligent People Who Are Not in

“To win the lottery once may be evidence of luck or skill; to win it repeatedly is evidence of skill.”
― John Kay, The Long and the Short of It - Finance and Investment for Normally Intelligent People Who Are Not in

“There is probably no worse investment strategy than following the conventional wisdom with a time-lag, and that is precisely what many small investors do - often with the encouragement of their advisers.”
― John Kay, The Long and the Short of It - Finance and Investment for Normally Intelligent People Who Are Not in

“What was true was what was believed, and what was believed was true. And when the bubbles burst, what had once been believed and was therefore true was no longer believed and therefore no longer true. The”
― John Kay, The Long and the Short of It: A guide to finance and investment