4 Quotes Guaranteed to Inspire Your Inner Billionaire

Benjamin Graham, the investing guru who taught and inspired a young Warren Buffett, died in 1976, yet his brilliant investing wisdom survives today in texts, transcripts, books, and the minds of his many successful proteges.

Case in point is Graham's 1963 speech titled "Securities in an Insecure World." Let's dive into the speech for the wisest and most billionaire-inspiring quotes and lessons.

1. On inflationToday, with inflation near zero and countless pundits predicting a dramatic spike in consumer prices as a result of Federal Reserve policies, inflation is as good a place to start now as it was in 1963. Graham said:

In other words, financial history is a whole lot longer than just the past 10, 20, or even 100 years. It's incredibly hard to predict how macro phenomena will play out, so invest conservatively and for the long term.

2. On change and gaming the marketWe'd all love to discover some timeless formula that predicts exactly what the market will do next -- a crystal ball of capitalism, if you will. Of course, will never happen, and Graham explains why:

There is no magic formula that will automatically tell us whether an investment will make us rich. The better strategy is to invest carefully and steadily over your entire working career.

3. On Wall Street's very short memoryWe'd all like to think that the lessons of the financial crisis are now branded into the consciousness of Wall Street forever. Sadly, history has proven that hope false time and time again throughout modern history. Wall Street has a bad habit of forgetting the lessons learned from one crisis and repeating them in the next. Short-term memory loss in the markets is nothing new, as Graham discussed nearly 52 years ago:

4. The "many-billion-dollar question"So what will the market do next? Graham explains:

Becoming a billionaire clearly isn't easy. The beauty, in my opinion, of Ben Graham's philosophies is that they are simple, repeatable, and applicable by the everyday investor. You don't need an Ivy League MBA or a job on Wall Street. You just need to think independently, put in the work, and stay consistent over the long term.

Do that and, as Graham said, you'll answer the billion-dollar question for yourself.

The article 4 Quotes Guaranteed to Inspire Your Inner Billionaire originally appeared on Fool.com.

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