Investment and Life Lessons - Part 16

Here's the PART 16 of our Investment and Life Lessons series. 

These are the ideas we've gathered from our various readings on business, stocks, economy, money, war, love and life. Our list is getting too long again hence we're sharing it with the Filipino Investors out there for them to learn a thing or two. Cheers!

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1. We have to play the hand we are dealt - John Wooden

2. Small things make big things happen - John Wooden

3. Promise chocolate, bring wine

4. Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.~Suntzu, The Art of War

5. The hungry never gets fed

6. Every single day that you wake up, Remember that you are then the youngest you will ever be. Most do Not run the Age numbers this way.

7. No bird soars in a calm

8. To succeed spectacularly, you have to be willing to fail spectacularly

9. We ignore our suspicions so long as we hold on to our illusions

10. Hesitation killed the samurai.

11. Being anonymous is a luxury. Being rich and anonymous is the ultimate luxury!

12. one should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid war, for war is not avoided thereby but merely deferred to one’s own disadvantage - Machiavelli

13. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

14. The difference does not arise from the greater or lesser ability of the conqueror, but from dissimilarities in the conquered lands

15. When you handle your shit and get things done you are in a better position to laugh and be playful

16. Brave the elements

17. Modern men only know the fruits of their ancestors labor but not the labor itself

18. Western men has been given an abundance of wealth without any sacrifice

19. Strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times, bad times create strong men

20. Own what you do or don't do it

21. We live in a world where nuance is something that is not in short supply

22. Men almost always walk in paths beaten by others and act by imitation. 

23. Though he cannot hold strictly to the ways of others or match the ability of those he imitates, a prudent must always thread the path of great men and imitate those who have excelled, so that even if his ability does not match theirs, at least he will achieve some semblance of it

24. He should act like a prudent archer who, knowing the limitation of his bow and judging the target to be too far off,  sets aim still farther off, not to strike to distant a mark, but rather to strike the desired target through the more ambitious aim

25. It is necessary to provide that when they no longer believe, they can be forced to believe

26. He (Hiero of Syracuse) possessed such remarkable ability that even as a private person it was said of him that he lacked nothing but a kingdom to become king - Machiavelli

27. Although exerted great effort to achieve his position, it require little to keep it

28. I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else

29. He understood well enough how a man with a choice between pride and responsibility will almost always choose pride—if responsibility robs him of his manhood. –Stephen King

30. One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man

31. Civilization comes at a cost of manliness. it comes at a cost of wildness, of risk, of strife. It comes at a cost of strength, of courage, of mastery. It comes at a cost of honor. Increased civilization exacts a toll of virility, forcing manliness into further redoubts of vicariousness and abstraction.” –Jack Donovan

32. There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is ‘Where am I going?’ and the second is ‘Who will go with me?’ If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble. – Sam Keen

33. I have invested a lot in that well-managed company, but I don’t want to mention figures - Henry Sy re SMC stake

34. Haters are confused admirers

35. Cruelty can be said to be properly used when one resort to it at one stroke out of a need for safety and does not thereafter insist upon it, but seeks instead to replace it with measures that are of the greatest possible use to his subjects

36. improperly used when, though rarely used at the start, it is resorted to with increasing rather than decreasing frequency as time goes by

37. Too old to be making chump change 

38. Delayed gratification will get you everything you want

39. You want to be rich and anonymous, not poor and famous.

40. The art of architecture studies not structure in itself, but the effect of structure on the human spirit. -Geoffrey Scott, 1914

41. In your affairs, create suspense - Baltasar Gracian

42. It’s neither useful nor pleasurable to show all your cards - B. Gracian

43. Skillfully make those whom nature made superior your servants

44. Quit while fortune is smiling

45. Think with the few and speak with the many

46. A good falconer releases only as many birds as are needed for the chase. 

47. Don’t continually flaunt your qualities or there’ll be nothing left to admire

48. Leave a good impression, it’s common for lucky people to have very favourable beginnings and tragic endings.

49. The aim is not to have your entrance applauded by the rabble, for everyone's treated this way. What matters rather is the general feeling your exit arouses, for few are missed once gone. - B. Gracian

50. Make sure of a successful outcome. Some focus more on going about things the right way than on achieving their goal.

51. If the King marries a woman, she becomes the Queen. If the queen marries a man he becomes the Queen's husband.

52. Promise me that you will never let the fires of your ambition die out - Captain Usopp

53. As of today, our group, The Usopp Pirates - are disbanded! - Captain Usopp

54. Oedipus tries to run away from his fate, but ends up running right into it.

55. A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.

56. When one is liked, a job mediocrely performed is seen as great, but when disliked, a job greatly performed is seen as mediocre.

57. A spring’s water is easily muddied; you will never make it clear by trying to, only by leaving it well alone. There is no better remedy for disorder than to let it run its course; it will then disappear on its own

58. As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

59. Most people express their in envy by way of resentment

60. There is no single script

61. A man only gets a couple of chances in life. If he doesn't grab them by the balls, it won't be long before he’s sitting around wondering how he got to be second rate - Bart

62. Communism was a great system for making people equally poor - in fact, there was no better system in the world for that than communism. Capitalism made people unequally rich. - Thomas Friedman

63. Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left? Answer: five. Why? Because there's difference between deciding and doing. - Mark Feldman and Michael Spratt

64. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. - Seneca

65. The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery. - Winston Churchill

66. The capitalist is merely a man who does not spend all that is earned by work.

- Samuel Smiles, Thrift (1875)

67. The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. -Sun Tzu

68. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. - Art of War

69. You put a police car on anyone’s tail for 500 miles, he’s gonna get a ticket - Warren Buffett

70. The absence of hierarchy is chaos, and thus to aim for and idealize equality is to promote and usher in chaos

71. Neither man nor woman covets egalitarian liaisons, for it is within the very nature of man to want to dominate in the bedroom, as in the nature of woman to want to be taken in it. Unlike politics, dogma and social ideology, sex does not lie, for the heart wants what the heart wants and the purest manifestations of masculinity and femininity are laid bare in all their unfettered glory in the bedroom.

72. "A prediction about the direction of the stock market tells you nothing about where stocks are headed, but a whole lot about the person doing the predicting."

- Warren Buffett

73. Ozymandias - even the greatest men and the empires they forge are impermanent, their legacies fated to decay into oblivion

74. As markets continue to evolve, it seems likely that sustained success at scale will become more and more the domain of carefully built, disciplined, process-focused institutions than single geniuses

75. Let the ruler be a ruler, the subject a subject, a father a father, and a son a son

76. Pag amping intawn, diko gusto naay mahitabo nimo. Gusto ko naay mahitabo nato.

77. Dream or fate?

78. Destiny, Fate, Dreams, These unstoppable ideals are held deep in the heart of man; as long as there are people who seek freedom in this life; these things shall not vanish from the earth

79. The distinction has always been between 'a man who is' and 'a man who does'. The latter is forced to take up industry to support himself; the former is someone who isn't forced by any means to work. - WSO

80. Never mind my imperfections this is fact. Remember that, no mistakes' too great to recover and bounce back.

81. People die when they no longer have a reason to live - Cus D’Amat

82. The nights that he gives up and decides to heartbrokenly move on, only to regain persistence the next morning

83. Since profits are finite, then the price that an investor must be willing to pay, must also be finite

84. If a Stoic is given a choice by Fortune, whether to have a good thing happen, or to have a bad thing happen, he can naturally want the good thing. But he must not view this good thing as absolutely necessary." - Seneca

85. She never fooled you, you always knew exactly what she was and you loved her anyway. - Tyrion Lanister

86. Never explain — your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you anyway. –Elbert Hubbard

87. The most consistent wins

88. Nobody wins when fight each other

89. if you don’t have anything you have to act like you own everything

90. In love, there’s no such thing as victims, just volunteers.

91. Be proud of your lineage, for you are powerless to change it.

92. I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work - Edison

93. They will be serious about you, when you are serious about yourself.

94. An individual either accepts value investing strategy at first sight, or never accepts it, regardless of training and other people's examples. There seems to be a perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult... it's likely to continue this way.

95. (On October 2009) This is the third time that Warren and I have seen our holdings in Berkshire Hathaway go down, top tick to bottom tick, by 50%. I think it's in the nature of long term shareholding of the normal vicissitudes, in worldly outcomes, and in markets that the long-term holder has his quoted value of his stocks go down by say 50% - Charlie Munger

96. In fact, you can argue that if you’re not willing to react with equanimity to a market price decline of 50% two or three times a century you’re not fit to be a common shareholder and you deserve the mediocre result you’re going to get. - Charlie Munger

97. Real opportunities that come to you are few… When you find one my dear grandchildren and you can clearly recognize it, seize it boldly and don't do it small. - Charlie Munger

98. Money talks, wealth whispers

99. Great ideas are meant to be brought to life
100. The secret to success is to get up early, work hard and strike oil - John D. Rockefeller