They say you never grow poor taking profits. No, you don't. But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market. Where I should have made twenty thousand dollars I made two thousand. That was what conservatism did for me. Jesse Lauriston Livermore More Quotes by Jesse Lauriston Livermore More Quotes From Jesse Lauriston Livermore If I learned all this so slowly it was because I learned by my mistakes, and some time always elapses between making a mistake and realizing it, and more time between realizing it and exactly determining it. Jesse Lauriston Livermore more-time realizing mistake If you can't sleep at night because of your stock market position, then you have gone too far. If this is the case, then sell your position down to the sleeping level. Jesse Lauriston Livermore gone sleep night When I'm bearish and I sell a stock, each sale must be at a lower level than the previous sale. When I am buying, the reverse is true. I must buy on a rising scale. I don't buy long stocks on a scale down, I buy on a scale up. Jesse Lauriston Livermore investing business long 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. They have cost stock traders, in the aggregate, enough millions of dollars to build a concrete highway across the continent. Jesse Lauriston Livermore giving-up trying two He really meant to tell them that the big money was not in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements that is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend. Jesse Lauriston Livermore investing tape reading There is the plain fool who does the wrong thing at all times anywhere, but there is the Wall Street fool who thinks he must trade all the time. Jesse Lauriston Livermore wall doe thinking Trends come like a series of ocean waves, bringing the high tide when things are good and, as conditions recede, the low tide appears. These trends come unexpectedly, unpredictably, and they have to be weathered with temperance, poise, and patience- good or bad. Jesse Lauriston Livermore tides trends ocean My main life lesson from investing: self-interest is the most powerful force on earth, and can get people to embrace and defend almost anything. Jesse Lauriston Livermore life-lesson powerful self People who look for easy money invariable pay for the privilege of proving conclusively that it cannot be found on this earth. Jesse Lauriston Livermore investing people looks There is nothing new in Wall Street. There can't be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again. Jesse Lauriston Livermore hills wall today A market does not culminate in one grand blaze of glory. Neither does it end with a sudden reversal of form. A market can and does often cease to be a bull market long before prices generally begin to break. Jesse Lauriston Livermore bulls doe long I cannot fear to be wrong because I never think I'm wrong until I am proven wrong. In fact, I am uncomfortable unless I am capitalizing my experience. Jesse Lauriston Livermore uncomfortable facts thinking It isn't a hunch but the subconscious mind, which is the creative mind, at work. That is the mind which makes artists do things without their knowing how they came to do them. Perhaps with me it was the cumulative effect of a lot of little things individually insignificant but collectively powerful. Jesse Lauriston Livermore powerful knowing artist No one ever went broke by taking a profit. Jesse Lauriston Livermore broke profit If a man is both wise and lucky, he will not make the same mistake twice. But he will make any one of ten thousand brothers or cousins of the original. Jesse Lauriston Livermore cousin brother wise I never argue with the tape. To be angry at the market because it unexpectedly or even illogically goes against you is like getting mad at your lungs because you have pneumonia. Jesse Lauriston Livermore pneumonia tape mad A man must study general conditions, to seize them so as to be able to anticipate probabilities. Jesse Lauriston Livermore investing able men The only thing to do when a man is wrong is to be right by ceasing to be wrong. Jesse Lauriston Livermore things-to-do men There is time to go long, time to go short and time to go fishing. Jesse Lauriston Livermore business fishing long "I can't sleep" answered the nervous one. Jesse Lauriston Livermore why-not sleep thinking