1976-11 Warren Buffett’s Forward to The Intelligent Investor

I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was nineteen. I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written. I still think it is.

1950年初，我19岁的时候读了这本书的初版。当时我认为它是迄今为止关于投资的最好的书。我现在仍然这么认为。

To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a strato-spheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What’s needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. This book precisely and clearly prescribes the proper framework. You must supply the emotional discipline.

一生中成功的投资并不需要超凡的智商、非凡的商业洞察力或内幕信息。你需要的是一个健全的决策思维框架，以及防止情绪侵蚀该框架的能力。本书精准清晰地阐述了正确的框架。你必须具备情绪自律的能力。

最直白的表达：自律（即安全感，即安全边际的感受能力），这是天生的，5岁以前没有形成的后面很难再获得。

If you follow the behavioral and business principles that Graham advocates—and if you pay special attention to the invaluable advice in Chapters 8 and 20—you will not get a poor result from your investments. (That represents more of an accomplishment than you might think.) Whether you achieve outstanding results will depend on the effort and intellect you apply to your investments, as well as on the amplitudes of stock-market folly that prevail during your investing career. The sillier the market’s behavior, the greater the opportunity for the business-like investor. Follow Graham and you will profit from folly rather than participate in it.

如果你遵循格雷厄姆倡导的行为和商业原则，并且特别留意第 8 章和第 20 章中那些宝贵的建议，你的投资回报将非常可观。（这代表着比你想象的更大的成就。）你能否取得优异的业绩，取决于你在投资中投入的努力和智慧，以及你投资生涯中股市愚蠢行为的程度。市场行为越愚蠢，精明的投资者就越有机会。追随格雷厄姆，你将从愚蠢中获利，而不是参与其中。

To me, Ben Graham was far more than an author or a teacher. More than any other man except my father, he influenced my life. Shortly after Ben’s death in 1976, I wrote the following short remembrance about him in the Financial Analysts Journal. As you read the book, I believe you’ll perceive some of the qualities I mentioned in this tribute.

对我来说，本杰明·格雷厄姆远不止是一位作家或老师。除了我父亲，他对我人生的影响比任何人都大。1976 年本杰明去世后不久，我在《金融分析师杂志》上发表了以下简短的悼念文章。相信读完这本书，你就会感受到我在悼念文章中提到的一些品质。

BENJAMIN GRAHAM

本杰明·格雷厄姆

1894–1976

Several years ago Ben Graham, then almost eighty, expressed to a friend the thought that he hoped every day to do “something foolish, something creative and something generous."

几年前，年近八十的本杰明·格雷厄姆向一位朋友表达了这样的想法：他希望每天做“一些愚蠢的事、一些有创意的事和一些慷慨的事”。

The inclusion of that first whimsical goal reflected his knack for pack-aging ideas in a form that avoided any overtones of sermonizing or self-importance. Although his ideas were powerful, their delivery was unfailingly gentle.

第一个异想天开的目标体现了他善于将想法包装得恰到好处，避免了任何说教或自负的意味。尽管他的想法很有力量，但表达方式却始终温和。

只会让紧张的人更紧张，不会有任何正面的效果。

Readers of this magazine need no elaboration of his achievements as measured by the standard of creativity. It is rare that the founder of a discipline does not find his work eclipsed in rather short order by successors. But over forty years after publication of the book that brought structure and logic to a disorderly and confused activity, it is difficult to think of possible candidates for even the runner-up position in the field of security analysis.In an area where much looks foolish within weeks or months after publication, Ben’s principles have remained sound—their value often enhanced and better understood in the wake of financial storms that demolished flimsier intellectual structures. His counsel of soundness brought unfailing rewards to his followers—even to those with natural abilities inferior to more gifted practitioners who stumbled while following counsels of brilliance or fashion.

本杂志的读者无需赘述他以创造力为衡量标准的成就。一门学科的创始人很少会发现自己的成果在短时间内被后继者所超越。然而，在他为混乱无序的学术活动注入结构和逻辑的著作出版四十多年后，我们却很难想象在证券分析领域，哪怕是屈居亚军的候选人也寥寥无几。在一个许多观点在出版几周或几个月后就显得愚蠢的领域，本的原则却始终坚守——在金融风暴摧毁了那些较为薄弱的知识体系之后，这些原则的价值往往会得到提升和更好的理解。他提出的稳健建议为他的追随者带来了丰厚的回报——即使是那些天赋不如那些在追随才华横溢或时尚潮流时跌倒的更有天赋的从业者的人，也从中受益匪浅。

巴菲特从来不认同“common sense”或者芒格说的“uncommon sense”，也包括“本分”这样的说法（所有材料中找不到相关的评论），他认为这些概念缺少操作性，缺少“可检验、可训练”的动作。

A remarkable aspect of Ben’s dominance of his professional field was that he achieved it without that narrowness of mental activity that concentrates all effort on a single end. It was, rather, the incidental by-product of an intellect whose breadth almost exceeded definition. Certainly I have never met anyone with a mind of similar scope. Virtually total recall, unending fascination with new knowledge, and an ability to recast it in a form applicable to seemingly unrelated problems made exposure to his thinking in any field a delight.

本在其专业领域占据主导地位的一个显著特点是，他没有将全部精力集中在单一目标上的狭隘思维。相反，这更像是他那几乎超越定义的广度的智力的偶然产物。我从未见过拥有如此广阔视野的人。他几乎完全的记忆力，对新知识永不枯竭的渴望，以及将新知识重新转化为适用于看似毫不相关的问题的能力，使得接触他在任何领域的思想都令人欣喜。

But his third imperative—generosity—was where he succeeded beyond all others. I knew Ben as my teacher, my employer, and my friend. In each relationship—just as with all his students, employees, and friends—there was an absolutely open-ended, no-scores-kept generosity of ideas, time, and spirit. If clarity of thinking was required, there was no better place to go. And if encouragement or counsel was needed, Ben was there.

但他的第三项原则——慷慨——才是他超越其他所有原则的地方。我认识本，他是我的老师、我的雇主，也是我的朋友。在每一段关系中——就像他和他的学生、员工和朋友一样——他都绝对开放，毫无保留地慷慨地分享想法、时间和精神。如果需要清晰的思路，没有比他更好的地方了。如果需要鼓励或建议，本就在身边。

Walter Lippmann spoke of men who plant trees that other men will sit under. Ben Graham was such a man.

沃尔特·李普曼曾说过，有人栽种树木，供他人栖身。本杰明·格雷厄姆就是这样一个人。

Reprinted from the Financial Analysts Journal, November/December 1976.

转载自《金融分析师期刊》，1976 年 11/12 月。

1976-11 Warren Buffett’s Forward to The Intelligent Investor

1976-11 Warren Buffett’s Forward to The Intelligent Investor

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