Bernard Baruch Quotes

If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he is wrong.

Chance sometimes opens the door, but luck belongs to the good players.

Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human duty. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than physics.

We did not all come over on the same ship, but we are all in the same boat.

Buy straw hats in the wintertime. Summer will surely come.

A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren't still there, he's no longer a political leader.

Recipe for success: Be polite, prepare yourself for whatever you are asked to do, keep yourself tidy, be cheerful, don't be envious, be honest with yourself so you will be honest with others, be helpful, interest yourself in your job, don't pity yourself, be quick to praise, be loyal to your friends, avoid prejudices, be independent, interest yourself in politics, and read the newspapers.

Peace is never long preserved by weight of metal or by an armament race. Peace can be made tranquil and secure only by understanding and agreement fortified by sanctions. We must embrace international cooperation or international disintegration. Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human dignity. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics.

A dangerous fallacy is to repudiate freedom in favor of an unknown future. What else but our own sturdy reliance on freedom can explain the unexampled record this country has made? In a period scarcely twice my own lifetime it has risen from nothingness to become the world's greatest power. It has become the ark of the covenant of freedom.

When good news about the market hits the front page of the New York Times, sell.

Let us not be deceived we are today in the midst of a cold war.

Always do one thing less than you think you can do.

We grow neither better or worse as we get old, but more like ourselves.

Old books that have ceased to be of service should no more be abandoned than should old friends who have ceased to give pleasure.

Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars.

Making a success of the job at hand is the best step toward the kind you want.

Nothing did more to spur the boom in stocks than the decision made by the New York Federal Reserve bank, in the spring of 1927, to cut the rediscount rate. Benjamin Strong, Governor of the bank, was chief advocate of this unwise measure, which was taken largely at the behest of Montagu Norman of the Bank of England ... At the time of the Banks action I warned of its consequences ... I felt that sooner or later the market had to break.

Don't try to be a jack of all investments. Stick to the field you know best.

Gold has worked down from Alexander's time ... When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory.

There is something about inside information which seems to paralyse a man's reasoning powers.

So efficient are the available instruments of slavery; fingerprints, lie detectors, brain washings, gas chambers; that we shiver at the thought of political change which might put these instruments in the hands of men of hate.

Government is not a substitute for people, but simply the instrument through which they act. And if the individual fails to do his duty as a citizen, government becomes a very deadly instrument indeed.

I am interested in physical medicine because my father was. I am interested in medical research because I believe in it. I am interested in arthritis because I have it.

The stock market is people.

Unless each man produces more than he receives, increases his output, there will be less for him than all the others.

One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything everynight before you go to bed.

Whatever you do, do it with all your heart and soul.

If the history of the past fifty years teaches us anything, it is that peace does not follow disarmament - disarmament follows peace.

Never pay the slightest attention to what a company president ever says about his stock.

Be quick to praise people. People like to praise those who praise them.

The art of living lies not in eliminating but in growing with troubles.

Become more humble as the market goes your way.

The longer I operated on Wall Street the more distrustful I became of tips and inside information of every kind. Given time, I believe that inside information can break the Bank of England

Only liars manage to always be out during bad times and in during good times.

Our problem in money-making or government affairs is how to remain properly venturesome and experimental without making fools of ourselves.

Bears don't live on Park Avenue.

I have learned the truth of the observation that the more one approaches great men the more one finds that they are men.

No man should think himself a zero, and think he can do nothing about the state of the world.

Although the shooting war is over, we are in the midst of a cold war which is getting warmer.

A man sentenced to death obtained a reprieve by assuring the king he would teach his majesty's horse to fly within the year - on the condition that if he didn't succeed, he would be put to death at the end of the year. "Within a year," the man explained later, "the king may die, or I may die, or the horse may die. Furthermore, in a year, who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to fly." My philosophy is like that man's. I take the long-range view.

Agriculture is the greatest and fundamentally the most important of our industries. The cities are but the branches of the tree of national life, the roots of which go deeply into the land. We all flourish or decline with the farmer.

Let us not deceive ourselves; we must elect world peace or world destruction.

The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.

Never answer a critic, unless he's right.

You can't repeal human nature by an Act of Congress.

No man can humiliate me or disturb me. I won't let him.

When the outlook is steeped in pessimism, I remind myself, "Two and two still make four, and you can't keep humankind down for long."

I'll give you the bottom 10% and the top 10% of any move if I get to keep the middle 80%.

Learn to take losses quickly and cleanly. There is something about inside information which seems to paralyze a man's reasoning powers. Beware of barbers, beauticians, waiters - or anyone - bringing gifts of 'inside' information or tips. Don't try to be a jack of all investment. Stick to the field you know best.

America has never forgotten - and will never forget - the nobler things that brought her into being and that light her path - the path that was entered upon only one hundred and fifty years ago ... How young she is! It will be centuries before she will adopt that maturity of custom - the clothing of the grave - that some people believe she is already fitted for.

The terror created by weaponry has never stopped men from employing them.

Whatever men attempt, they seem driven to overdo. When hopes are soaring, I always repeat to myself that two and two still make four.

I have known men who could see through the motivations of others with the skill of a clairvoyant; only to prove blind to their own mistakes. I have been one of those men.

Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought.

Do not blame anybody for your mistakes and failures.

Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can't retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.

I was the son of an immigrant. I experienced bigotry, intolerance and prejudice, even as so many of you have. Instead of allowing these thing to embitter me, I took them as spurs to more strenuous effort.

Creativity: Take the obvious, add a cupful of brains, a generous pinch of imagination, a bucketful of courage and daring, stir well and bring to a boil.

Never play tips from "insiders." They can't see the forest for the trees.

Nobody ever lost money taking a profit.