Edwin Lefèvre Quotes Page 2

“It takes a man a long time to learn all the lessons of all of his mistakes.”

“It’s the guessing that develops a man’s brain power. Just consider what you have to do to guess right.”

“Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make big money. It is literally true that millions come easier to a trader after he knows how to trade than hundreds did in the days of his ignorance.”

“Money does not give a trader more comfort, because, rich or poor, he can make mistakes and it is never comfortable to be wrong.”

“My losses have taught me that I must not begin to advance until I am sure I shall not have to retreat.”

“My losses have taught me that I must not begin to advance until I am sure I shall not have to retreat. But if I cannot advance I do not move at all. I do not mean by this that a man should not limit his losses when he is wrong. He should. But that should not breed indecision.”

“Never try to sell at the top. It isn't wise. Sell after a reaction if there is no rally.”

“No man can always have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily – or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play.”

“No, sir, nobody can make big money on what someone else tells him to do.”

“Nowhere does history indulge in repetitions so often or so uniformly as in Wall Street. When you read contemporary accounts of booms or panics, the one thing that strikes you most forcibly is how little either stock speculation or stock speculators today differ from yesterday. The game does not change and neither does human nature.”

“Of course there is always a reason for fluctuations, but the tape does not concern itself with the why and wherefore. It doesn't go into explanations. I didn't ask the tape why when I was fourteen, and I don't ask it today, at forty. The reason for what a certain stock does today may not be known for two or three days, or weeks, or months. But what the dickens does that matter? Your business with the tape is now not tomorrow. The reason can wait. But you must act instantly or be left.”

“One of the most helpful things that anybody can learn is to give up trying to catch the last eighth – or the first. These two are the most expensive eighths in the world.”

“Remember this: When you are doing nothing, those speculators who feel they must trade day in and day out, are laying the foundation for your next venture. You will reap benefits from their mistakes.”

“Speculators buy the trend; investors are in for the long haul; they are a different breed of cats.
One reason that people lose money today is that they have lost sight of this distinction; they profess to have the long term in mind and yet cannot resist following where the hot money has led.”

“That is about all I have learned — to study general conditions, to take a position and stick to it.”

“That is one trouble about trading on a large scale. You cannot sneak out as you can when you pike along.”

“The average man doesn’t wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn’t even wish to have to think. It is too much bother to have to count the money that he picks up from the ground.”

“The beauty of doing business with a crook is that he always forgives you for catching him, so long as you don't stop doing business with him.”

“The big money in booms is always made first by the public – on paper. And it remains on paper.”

“The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor.”

“The game taught me the game.”

“The game taught me the game. And it didn't spare the rod while teaching.”

“The nature of the game as it is played is such that the public should realize that the truth cannot be told by the few who know. Otherwise they could not benefit by their knowledge.”

“The old story of the man who was going to fight a duel the next day. His second asked him, 'Are you a good shot?'
'Well,' said the duelist, 'I can snap the stem of a wineglass at twenty paces,' and he looked modest.
'That's all very well,' said the unimpressed second. 'But can you snap the stem of the wineglass while the wineglass is pointing a loaded pistol straight at your heart?'
”

“The only thing that didn’t lie because it simply couldn’t was mathematics.
”

“The only thing to do when a man is wrong is to be right by ceasing to be wrong.”

“The point is not to buy cheap or sell high, but to buy or sell at the right moment. When I sell stocks because I'm bearish, each sell must be at a lower price than the previous one. The opposite is true when I buy, I only buy when it is bullish. I don't go long when the trend is low, only when the trend is high.”

“The principles of successful stock speculation are based on the supposition that people will continue in the future to make the mistakes that they have made in the past.”

“The public always wants to be told.”

“The public never is independently responsive to news.”