The less the prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we must conduct our own. - Warren Buffett

Walter never went to college, but took a course from Ben Graham at night at the . Walter left Graham-Newman [Partnership] in 1955... He knows how to identify securities that sell at considerably less than their value to a private owner. And that's all he does. ...He simply says, if a business is worth a dollar and I can buy it for 40 cents, something good may happen to me. And he does it over and over again.

Most companies are saddled with institutional constraints. A company's history, for example, may commit it to an industry that now offers limited opportunity. A more common problem is a shareholder constituency that pressures its manager to dance to Wall Street's tune. Many CEOs resist, but others give in and adopt operating and capital-allocation policies far different from those they would choose if left to themselves.

I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.