Quotes from Jesse Lauriston Livermore

It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting.

I know from experience that nobody can give me a tip or a series of tips that will make more money for me than my own judgment.

Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make big money.

Money is made by sitting, not trading.

Experience has proved to me that real money made in speculating has been in commitments in a stock or commodity showing a profit right from the start.

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.

People who look for easy money invariable pay for the privilege of proving conclusively that it cannot be found on this earth.

It took me five years to learn to play the game intelligently enough to make big money when I was right.

I began to realize that the big money must necessarily be in the big swing.

Wall Street never changes, the pockets change, the suckers change, the stocks change, but Wall Street never changes, because human nature never changes.

Instead of hoping he must fear and instead of fearing he must hope. He must fear that his loss may develop into a much bigger loss, and hope that his profit may become a big profit.

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.

set your own rules and stick to them; never argue with the market; never make a play you can't afford; never give way to irrational exuberance. Above all, don't be a sucker.

The stock market is never obvious. It is designed to fool most of the people, most of the time.

Every once in a while you must go to cash, take a break, take a vacation. Don't try to play the market all the time. It can't be done, too tough on the emotions.

It takes a man a long time to learn all the lessons of all his mistakes.

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.

Don't give me timing, give me time

Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon.

A man must study general conditions, to seize them so as to be able to anticipate probabilities.

The only thing to do when a man is wrong is to be right by ceasing to be wrong.

When a man is right he wants to get all that is coming to him for being right.

There is time to go long, time to go short and time to go fishing.

Professional traders have always had some system or other based upon their experience and governed either by their attitude towards speculation or by their desires.