Mark Twain’s Financial Insights — From a Quotational Perspective (Revised)

Unless insights are properly utilized, they become useless information.

In my journey to financial independence, I have passed through several developmental phases from a state of nearly total ignorance to a state of a more informed investor. Over the years, I have read thousands of books and articles and listened to a myriad of podcasts and presentations, all of which had different perspectives regarding the art of investing.

In my search for the perfect formula for financial success, popular TV programs about finance could often be just as confusing. With a focus on ratings and entertainment, many of their guests’ predictions bordered on outrageous, missing was any fact checking to determine the accuracy of their previous recommendations.

The bottom line is that resources meant to help us become better and wiser investors often can end up creating a world of contradictions and confusion for us.

In navigating this maze of information, I quickly discovered that the most useful financial wisdom often had little or nothing to do with finance but was essentially astute observations about human behavior — in other words, “financial truths” are frequently simply “human truths.”