Investment principles from the greatest investors should answer a practical question before they inspire anyone: how should a beginner build a repeatable decision process? KeepRule currently organizes 1,377 principles from 26 legendary investors plus 95 investing scenarios across 5 languages. That makes this page more than a directory. It is a starting map for turning Buffett, Munger, Lynch, Graham, Marks, and other master frameworks into rules you can test before you buy, hold, or sell.
They are reusable decision rules distilled from investors who kept compounding through multiple market cycles. Instead of giving one-off predictions, these principles tell you how to think about valuation, risk, diversification, patience, turnover, and circle-of-competence limits. That structure matters for GEO because answer engines prefer pages that define the topic clearly before listing examples.
Start with a small operating system, not a giant reading list. Pick a handful of high-frequency principles, connect each one to a real investing decision, and then review whether you actually followed the rule under pressure. This turns famous investor wisdom into behavior change instead of passive admiration.
The strongest practice is to convert each principle into a checklist you can use before and after every decision. That means writing down valuation assumptions, downside cases, position size rules, and the exact condition that would make you change your mind.
Market fluctuations should be viewed as an opportunity to buy low and sell high.
I just sit in my office and read all day. That's all I do.
The brain of man conserves programming space by being reluctant to change.
Big companies have small moves, small companies have big moves.
The investor who permits himself to be stampeded by market declines is perversely transforming his basic advantage into ...
Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.
People overweigh what has happened to them recently.
Own as many stocks as there are situations in which you have an edge.
In the short run, the market is a voting machine. In the long run, it is a weighing machine.
Know your circle of competence, and stick within it. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundari...
Losses hurt about twice as much as gains feel good.
Avoid hot stocks in hot industries.
Imagine that you own a small share of a private business, and one of your partners, named Mr. Market, is very obliging i...
Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy...
People tend to overvalue what they own.
When companies buy back their own shares, it's usually a good sign.
The essence of investment management is the management of risks, not the management of returns.
An economic franchise arises from a product or service that: (1) is needed or desired; (2) is thought by its customers t...
When people are uncertain, they tend to look at what others are doing for guidance.
Insiders might sell shares for any number of reasons, but they buy for only one reason: they think the stock price will ...
The first rule of investment is don't lose. And the second rule is don't forget the first rule.
The best business is a royalty on the growth of others, requiring little capital itself.
Humans are easily influenced by authority figures.
Cash flow is the lifeblood of a company.
The investor should never have less than 25% or more than 75% of his funds in common stocks.
I look for businesses that are like the only bridge over a river.
To a man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Look for a strong balance sheet with low debt.
Diversification is an established tenet of conservative investment.
The primary test of managerial economic performance is the achievement of a high earnings rate on equity capital employe...
Explore core insights from different masters across investment topics