Words of Philosophy & Psychology---

I decided to start this thread to post some interesting quotes, observations from famous & not so famous people---these will not only provide inspirations to excel in trading & life, but also bring in peace & comfort in a stressful trader's mind----very important to survive in this challenging profession---

"A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first."

"Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead."

"As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it."

"Knowledge is lost without putting it into practice; a man is lost due to ignorance; and an army is lost without a commander."

Cool quotes.. another good one "only risk what you can afford to burn"

"Trading provides one of the last great frontiers of opportunity in our economy. It is one of the very few ways in which an individual can start with a relatively small bankroll and actually become a multimillionaire. Of course, only a handful of individuals succeed in turning this feat, but at least the opportunity exists. A rigid stop-loss rule is an essential ingredient to the trading approach of many successful traders. Winning streaks lead to complacency, and complacency leads to sloppy trading. "

---Jack Schwager

Thanks Peter!
That's a good one!!
anyone is welcome to contribute to this thread---come on folks!

Here is one:

"I don't think trading strategies are as vulnerable to not working if people know about them,
as most traders believe. If what you are doing is right, it will work
even if people have a general idea about it.
I always say you could publish rules in a newspaper and no one would follow them.
The key is consistency and discipline."

---Richard Dennis

"Show me the charts, and I'll tell you the news. Have an opinion on what the market should do but don't decide what the market will do. Be happy with a percentage of the move. "

"No speculator can be right all the time. In fact, if a speculator is correct half of the time he is hitting a good average. Even being right three or four times out of ten should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on ventures where he has been wrong."


--- Bernard Baruch from "My Story"

"Risk control is the most important thing in trading. If you have a losing position that is making you uncomfortable, the solution is very simple: Get out, because you can always get back in. There is nothing better than a fresh start. The most important rule of trading is to play great defense, not great offense. Every day I assume every position I have is wrong. I know where my stop risk points are going to be. I do that so I can define my maximum possible draw down. Hopefully, I spend the rest of the day enjoying positions that are going in my direction. If they are going against me, then I have a game plan for getting out. Don't be a hero. Don't have an ego. Always question yourself and your ability. Don't ever feel that you are very good. The second you do, you are dead. I know that to be successful, I have to be frightened. Don't focus on making money; focus on protecting what you have."

---Paul Tudor Jones

"The biggest secret about success is that there isn't any big secret about it, or if there is, then it's a secret from me, too. The idea of searching for some secret for trading success misses the point. "

---Ed Seykota

"Throughout my financial career, I have continually witnessed examples of other people that I have known being ruined by a failure to respect risk. If you don't take a hard look at risk, it will take you. If you argue with the market, you will lose. It is incredible how rich you can get by not being perfect. Never risk more than 1% of your total equity in any one trade. By risking 1%, I am indifferent to any individual trade. Keeping your risk small and constant is absolutely critical. I have two basic rules about winning in trading as well as in life: 1. If you don't bet, you can't win. 2. If you lose all your chips, you can't bet. Frankly, I don't see markets. I see risks, rewards, and money."

---Larry Hite

My signature..

Never give up on yourself or others!!

One day I decided to quit...I quit my job, my relationship,my spirituality... I wanted to quit my life.

I went to the woods to have one last talk with GOD.

"GOD", I said. "Can you give me one good
reason not to quit?"
His answer surprised me... "Look around", He said.

"Do you see the fern and the bamboo?"

"Yes", I replied.

"When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took

very good care of them. I gave them light.

I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth.

Its brilliant green covered the floor.

Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed.

But I did not quit on the bamboo.

In the second year the Fern grew more

vibrant and plentiful.




And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed.

But I did not quit on the bamboo."

He said. "In year three there was still nothing from

the bamboo seed. But I would not quit.

In year four, again, there was nothing from the

bamboo seed. I would not quit." He said.

"Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged

from the earth. Compared to the fern it was

seemingly small and insignificant.........

But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over

100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots.

Those roots made it strong and gave it what

it needed to survive.

I would not give any of my creations a challenge

it could not handle."

He said to me. "Did you know, my child, that all this time

you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots?"

"I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you."




"Don't compare yourself to others."

He said. "The bamboo had a different purpose

than the fern. Yet they both make the forest beautiful."

"Your time will come", GOD said to me. "You will rise high"

"How high should I rise?" I asked.

"How high will the bamboo rise?" He asked in return.

"As high as it can?" I questioned.

"Yes." He said, "Give me glory by rising as high as you can."

I left the forest and brought back this story.

Great minds on Critics and Criticism
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN :
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT:
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

BRENDAN FRANCIS BEHAN :
Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON :
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

WHITNEY BALLIETT :
A critic is a bunch of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.

ELVIS PRESLEY :
Don't criticize what you don't understand, son. You never walked in that man's shoes.

WILLIAM ARTHUR :
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

"Figuratively speaking, . . . the small trader should imagine himself as a hitch-hiker in the market. For the ordinary hitch-hiker, someone else supplies the car, chauffeur, oil and gas. When he thinks the car is about to go in his direction, he jumps aboard and rides as far as he thinks the car will go. When he notices the machine has been stopped by a red light, or is about to turn a corner and go in some other direction, or that the car is running out of gas, or the brakes failing to work properly, he steps off and figures he has secured about as long a ride as he may expect. All he has supplied in this transaction is a modest commission and whatever brains were necessary to observe and recognize the opportunity when to get on and off."

---Richard Wyckoff

"Situation-focused talk vs. Emotion-focused talk - Traders who talk trading situations out loud--shifts in prices, looming exits, etc.--perform much better than traders whose conversations are ventings of emotion (positive or negative). From the vantage point of cognitive neuroscience, this makes sense: when we're problem-focused, we're activating frontal regions of the brain associated with the executive functions of planning, judgment, and decision-making. When we're in the throes of emotion, those same regions, key to trading behavior, are deactivated. Gladwell, in Blink!, points out that our access to the brain's frontal regions decreases dramatically as our heart rate elevates. Emotion-focused talk sustains physiological arousal, which impairs cognitive functioning."

---Brett Steenbarger

"The reading of trading forums is a 4th dimension experience. The customer's innocence/ignorance/unwillingness to try to understand/learn/look seems without limits. At the retail level, there are few attempts to know the market, the brokers, who are the players, what is the leverage, the spread, etc. It seems like people want deliberately to play blindly. When they buy a piece of fish at the fish market, they will carefully compare, weigh, smell, touch, remember, etc. When they buy 10,000 euros with leverage 10, they will base it on two crossing lines from a surrealist Picasso like painting."

----Vincent Andres

If you want a guarantee buy a toaster.

...Clint Eastwood

Found in Trend Following.

That was funny but true---

“All through time, people have basically acted and re-acted the same way in the market as a result of: greed, fear, ignorance, and hope – that is why the numerical formations and patterns recur on a constant basis.”


---Jesse Livermore

"The importance in asking a question is not to find the answer but to understand the problem because there is only the problem and not the answer. To ask a question is easy; but to go into the problem is extremely difficult because once you know what the problem is, the very seeing of the problem is the understanding of the problem. The moment I can state the problem very clearly, simply, the answer is there, I do not have to look beyond. But most of us do not know what the problem is. We are confused about the problem and so naturally we look, in our confusion, for answers; and that will only produce further confusion. "


---J Krishnamurti

"Be an avid reader of books, newspapers, and magazines.

Approach much of what is written and said with an appropriate amount of healthy skepticism

Be particularly careful with respect to the loudest views, the most widely held views, or the so-called "expert" views.

Double check the accuracy and the sources of your data. For many commentators, analysts, and reporters, their success is dependent on the excitement or controversy generated by their articles - not on the accuracy of their writing or of their predictions.

Read broadly, and be appropriately skeptical of the so-called experts."


---Eddie Lampart

"Most often, traders have four fears. There’s the fear of being wrong, the fear of losing money, the fear of missing out and the fear of leaving money on the table. I found that basically, those four fears accounted for probably 90% to 95% of the trading errors that we make. Let’s put it this way: If you can recognize opportunity, what’s going to prevent you from executing your trades properly? Your fear. Your fears immobilize you. Your fears distort your perception of market information in ways that don’t allow you to utilize what you know."

--- MARK DOUGLAS