MY COLLECTION
Landon's Favorite Quotes
To find answers to your own problems, learn from the wisdom of others.
Curated from sixty-five pages of quotes I have collected over decades, and organized here under his own sub-categories. His own sayings get the certificate treatment below.
IN HIS OWN WORDS
Quotes from Landon B. McDonald, CFA
“The best time to put money into Social Security for benefits payable today was 62 years ago, or earlier, if it was wisely invested and allowed to grow. The second best time is now. The worst time is tomorrow, to pay benefits that are due the next day. And that's what Social Security has done since it began. Social Security needs to be amended.”
“Past performance may provide no guarantees, but long-term future stock market index returns will almost always fall between the best and worst returns of the past 200+ years. Average was always good, and the worst was never bad.”
“Compounding is like a double-edged sword. With investment funds, compounding of growth from retained earnings and dividends will increase a fund's value more and more over time. But compared to a comparable fund with low costs, the longer you hold a high-cost fund, compounding of high fees & expenses will cause its growth to suffer more & more.”
“Once the market approaches a new all time high, each new trading day brings you one day closer to the next bear market. Likewise, once a new bear market begins, each new trading day brings you one day closer to the start of next bull market.”
“Exceptional vision plus exceptional hindsight from a study of history can show you how to reach a big goal others failed to achieve — or even attempt. If you don't ignore common sense.”
“To make a fool of yourself, decide important issues based on unverified assumptions.”
“Cause and effect, can be hard to connect.”
“The biggest difference between humans and other living creatures is this: humans rationalize their actions when they act foolish. Animals don't.”
“Of all the creatures in the animal kingdom, only humans do stupid things and then expect our peers to accept our lame rationalizations.”
“Just when I think I have all the answers, I discover there are more questions.”
“If there were no problems, unemployment would be intolerable.”
“Show me a problem that was years in the making, and I'll show you a problem that will be years in the fixing.”
“If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. But not necessarily. How will you know unless you verify?”
SUB-CATEGORY 01
Un-attributed or old sayings
“There is an exception to every rule.”
“We grow too soon old and too late smart.”
SUB-CATEGORY 02
Religion
“You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
SUB-CATEGORY 03
Obstacles, Motivation, Getting it Done, Leadership, Success, Failure
“What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.”
“Defeat should never be a source of discouragement but rather a fresh stimulus.”
“Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.”
“Successful innovation is not an act of intellect, but of will.”
“All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.”
“If you are failing to plan, you are planning to fail.”
“The mode in which the inevitable comes to pass is through effort.”
“Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. ‘No,’ I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?”
“He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.”
“Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.”
“If anything is worth trying at all, it's worth trying at least 10 times.”
“To create an organization that's adaptable and innovative, people need the freedom to challenge precedent, to 'waste' time, to go outside of channels, to experiment, to take risks and to follow their passions.”
“The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.”
SUB-CATEGORY 04
Truth, Lies & Confessions
“A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.”
“It's amazing how difficult it is for a man to understand something if he's paid a small fortune not to understand it.”
“Do not assume.”
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
“Sincerity is always subject to proof.”
“Trust, but verify.”
“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”
“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
“One of the striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”
“Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.”
“The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.”
“If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.”
SUB-CATEGORY 05
Wealth and Money
“The greatest legacy one can pass on to one's children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one's life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.”
“There's no such thing as a free lunch.”
“The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money.”
“When somebody says it's not about the money, it's about the money.”
“Time is money.”
SUB-CATEGORY 06
Wisdom, Ideas, Education, the Mind and Intelligence
“If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.”
“Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it.”
“A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
“It is as impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.”
“If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.”
“The power to question is the basis of all human progress.”
“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
“The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong question.”
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
“You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him find it within himself.”
“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”
“You see, but you do not observe.”
“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day.”
“Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom.”
SUB-CATEGORY 07
Investing, Trading, and Risk
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
“It amazes me how people are often more willing to act based on little or no data than to use data that is a challenge to assemble.”
“Time is an investor's most powerful asset.”
“Compounding is mankind's greatest invention because it allows for the reliable, systematic accumulation of wealth.”
“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn't … pays it.”
“If you have trouble imagining a 20% loss in the stock market, you shouldn't be in stocks.”
“All past market crashes are viewed as opportunities, but all future market crashes are viewed as risks.”
“It will fluctuate.”
“Though past performance provides no guarantees, “Reversion to the mean is still the most powerful force in finance.””
“When you sit at the trading terminal you look for the sucker. When you don't see one, it's you.”
“You don't know enough to invest in individual stocks. You are gambling. If that suits you, great. Go for it. You might win. But realize that no one sells stocks expecting you to make money on the deal.”
“A lot people think that if they are picking stocks that keep on going up, its because they are smart. They fail to notice that EVERYONE is able to pick winning stocks when all stocks are going up.”
“Everybody's a genius in a bull market.”
“October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.”
SUB-CATEGORY 08
Indexing
“Over long periods, hardly any fund managers have beaten the market averages.”
“As you seek investment success, … we know that we must start to invest at the earliest possible moment, and continue to put money away regularly from then on.”
“The creation of the first index fund by John Bogle was the equivalent of the invention of the wheel and the alphabet.”
“Charles Schwab, founder of Charles Schwab, talked last week about the power and importance of indexing, suggesting that low-cost diversified funds that track indexes are the best approach for 95 to 98 percent of Americans.”
“A low-cost index fund is the most sensible equity investment for the great majority of investors. My mentor, Ben Graham took this position many years ago and everything I have seen since convinces me of its truth.”
“The winning formula for success in investing is owning the entire stock market through an index fund, and then doing nothing. Just stay the course.”
“You can outperform more than 80 percent of your fellow investors over the next several decades simply investing in an index fund — and doing nothing else.”
SUB-CATEGORY 09
History
“History teaches us that man learns nothing from history.”
“What we learn from history is that people don't learn from history.”
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
“The real trick in life is to turn hindsight into foresight that reveals insight.”
“Study the past if you would define the future.”
SUB-CATEGORY 10
Vision (or lack thereof), dreams and ideas
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”
“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.”
“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’”
“Some men see things as they are and say, ‘why?’; I dream things that never were and say, ‘why not?’”
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
“Having just the vision's no solution; everything depends on execution.”
SUB-CATEGORY 11
Connecting the Dots
“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path; and that will make all the difference.”
“Buy into a business that's doing so well an idiot can run it, because sooner or later, one will. The U.S. is sort of like that.”
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
SUB-CATEGORY 12
Choices and Change
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
“It's better to walk alone than with a crowd going in the wrong direction.”
“After living with their dysfunctional behavior for so many years (a sunk cost if ever there was one), people become invested in defending their dysfunctions rather than changing them.”
“You can't change a system using the thinking that created it.”
SUB-CATEGORY 13
Ethics and Moral Choices
“It is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.”
“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.”
“It is wrong not to give a hand to the fallen; this law is universal to the whole human race.”
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
SUB-CATEGORY 14
Government, Politics, Power & Justice
“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. A Galileo could no more be elected President of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of soft illusion.”
“Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.”
SUB-CATEGORY 15
Perspective
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
“The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often even more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.”
“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.”
“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
FOR THE ROAD
Humor
“If everything is coming your way, you're probably in the wrong lane.”
“The human brain is a wonderful organ. It starts to work as soon as you are born and doesn't stop until you get up to deliver a speech.”
“Always tell the truth. You may make a hole in one when you're alone on the golf course someday.”
“The young always have the same problem — how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.”
“Following the John F. Kennedy inaugural address, Richard Nixon said to Kennedy aide Ted Sorensen, “I wish I had said some of those things.” Sorensen asked, What part? The part about ‘ask not what your country can do for you…’? “No,” Nixon said, “The part that starts, ‘I do solemnly swear’.””
Yogi Berra quotes
Berra-isms (colloquial expressions that lack logic) are now countless, and many of them are just attributed to Berra, even if he never actually said them. As he so perfectly put it: “I never said most of the things I said.” Here are 50 of my favorites.