Long or Short Capital

The behavior of termites, together with ants and bees, is a precursor to trust because they have an extraordinary ability to form relationships and sophisticated social structures based on mutual altruism even though individually they are fundamentally dumb. Money itself is a derivative of trust. If we can figure out how termites come together, then we may be able to better understand the underlying principles of market behavior — and make big money.

-Jeffrey Epstein, money manager/alleged sex criminal

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Gold is your chance. Gold is everyman’s opportunity… Every defect in a man and in others’ way of taking him, our agreement that gold has value, gives us power to rise above… The value I gave the gold restrained me, you see, your utility in connection with it. And because of my gold, those at the other tables deferred to my restraint… Gold confers power. Power comes to any man who has the color… That is our species hope. That uniformly agreeing on its value, we organize to seek the color.

-George Hearst, on Deadwood

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During the first period of a man’s life the greatest danger is: not to take the risk. When once the risk has really been taken, then the greatest danger is to risk too much.

-Soren Kierkegaard

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I, at least, do not learn from mistakes. I have to learn from successes.

-Peter Drucker

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If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice how he acts when he loses money.

-New England Proverb

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But I should say too that in these rooms just this afternoon such displeasure brought me near to murdering the Sheriff and raping Mrs. Ellsworth. I have learned through time, Mr. Tolliver, and as repeatedly seem to forget that whatever temporary comfort relieving my displeasure brings me, my long-term interests suffer. My proper traffic is with the Earth. In my dealings with people, I ought solely have to do with n*****s and whites who obey me like dogs.

-George Hearst, on Deadwood

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Whatever happens, there are always things you could have done better. You score two goals and you usually feel you could have done better. You score two goals and you usually feel you could have scored a third. That’s perfectionism. That’s what makes you progress in life.

-Eric Cantona

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On Net Neutrality:

To me it boils down to this:

The best employees at Yahoo, eBay, Google, and other major content providers are engineers.

The best employees at Comcast, Cox, SBC and other access providers are lobbyists.

For both of these types of companies, everyone else they hire is just good enough to support and monetize the work of their best employees.

–Derek Scruggs

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Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

-Milton Friedman

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Banker hoes L-O-V-E Udon noodle soup because it’s just like them: An emaciated, white, bland peace of Tofu, surrounded by other Udon sisters waiting to be gulped down by someone with a severely suppressed palate.

-Anonymous from The Leveraged Sell-Out

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There is not so much difference between the ideologies of capitalism and communism, you know. The difference is simple. Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, and Communism is the reverse.

-John Gardner, in his book The Man from Barbarossa

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There is lots of things to take into account? Do you even know what your EBITDA is? EARNINGS BEFORE INTEREST TAXES DEPRECIATION AND AMORTIZATION? Gives the true picture of a company’s profitability.

-Paulie Walnuts, Season 6 Episode 4 of the Sopranos

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In response to a question about having to comply with China’s censoring mandate for Internet companies:

I’ll tell you this, it’s not more hard than dealing with Sarbanes and Oxley.

-Xin Ye, a founding executive of Sohu.com (SOHU)

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The upshot is that the points where defensive or aggressive investment positions are most effective are also typically the points where one will, at least briefly, look like an idiot for taking them.

–Hostile Trends, John P. Hussman, Ph.D.

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing