There are four books in my overflowing library that I particularly treasure, each of them written more than 50 years ago. All, though, would still be of enormous value to me if I were to read them today for the first time; their wisdom endures though their pages fade.
在我那塞得满满的书库里，有四本书我尤为珍视，它们均写于五十年以上之前。然而，如果我今天第一次读到它们，它们仍将给我带来巨大的价值；尽管纸页已泛黄，其智慧历久弥新。
Two of those books are first editions of The Wealth of Nations (1776), by Adam Smith, and The Intelligent Investor (1949), by Benjamin Graham. A third is an original copy of the book you hold in your hands, Graham and Dodd’s Security Analysis. I studied from Security Analysis while I was at Columbia University in 1950 and 1951, when I had the extraordinary good luck to have Ben Graham and Dave Dodd as teachers. Together, the book and the men changed my life.
其中两本是亚当·斯密《国富论》（1776年）的初版和本杰明·格雷厄姆《聪明的投资者》（1949年）的首版。第三本是你手中这本格雷厄姆与多德合著的《证券分析》原版。我在1950至1951年就读哥伦比亚大学时学习此书，当时非常幸运地拥有本·格雷厄姆和戴夫·多德作为老师。这本书和这两位先生共同改变了我的一生。
On the utilitarian side, what I learned then became the bedrock upon which all of my investment and business decisions have been built. Prior to meeting Ben and Dave, I had long been fascinated by the stock market. Before I bought my first stock at age 11—it took me until then to accumulate the \$115 required for the purchase—I had read every book in the Omaha Public Library having to do with the stock market. I found many of them fascinating and all interesting. But none were really useful. My intellectual odyssey ended, however, when I met Ben and Dave, first through their writings and then in person. They laid out a roadmap for investing that I have now been following for 57 years. There’s been no reason to look for another.
在实用层面，我当时学到的知识成了我所有投资和商业决策的基石。在遇见本与戴夫之前，我早已沉迷于股市。在11岁买入第一只股票之前——我花了那么长时间才攒够购买所需的115美元——我已经读遍奥马哈公共图书馆内所有关于股市的书籍。我发现其中很多书引人入胜，但并无一书真正有用。然而，当我通过他们的著作并随后亲身结识本与戴夫时，我的求知之旅随之终结。他们为我绘制了一张投资路线图，我已沿其行进57年，从未需要寻找替代方案。
Beyond the ideas Ben and Dave gave me, they showered me with friendship, encouragement, and trust. They cared not a whit for reciprocation—toward a young student, they simply wanted to extend a one-way street of helpfulness. In the end, that’s probably what I admire most about the two men. It was ordained at birth that they would be brilliant; they elected to be generous and kind.
除了思想财富，本与戴夫还赐予我友谊、鼓励和信任。他们毫不在意回报——面对一个年轻学生，他们只是想单向地提供帮助。归根究底，这或许是我最敬佩他们的地方。才华是他们与生俱来的选择，他们却主动选择了慷慨和善良。
Misanthropes would have been puzzled by their behavior. Ben and Dave instructed literally thousands of potential competitors, young fellows like me who would buy bargain stocks or engage in arbitrage transactions, directly competing with the Graham-Newman Corporation, which was Ben’s investment company. Moreover, Ben and Dave would use current investing examples in the classroom and in their writings, in effect doing our work for us. The way they behaved made as deep an impression on me—and many of my classmates—as did their ideas. We were being taught not only how to invest wisely; we were also being taught how to live wisely.
愤世嫉俗的人会对他们的做法感到困惑。本与戴夫教导了成千上万潜在的竞争者，例如我这样会购买便宜股票或进行套利交易的年轻人，他们直接与本的投资公司格雷厄姆-纽曼公司竞争。此外，本与戴夫在课堂和著作中会引用最新的投资案例，实际上替我们完成了工作。他们的行为和他们的理念一样给我和许多同学留下了深刻印象。我们不仅学会了如何明智地投资，也学会了如何智慧地生活。
The copy of Security Analysis that I keep in my library and that I used at Columbia is the 1940 edition. I’ve read it, I’m sure, at least four times, and obviously it is special.
我书库里珍藏并在哥伦比亚大学使用的那本《证券分析》是1940年版。我确信自己至少读过四遍，它对我而言显然意义非凡。
But let’s get to the fourth book I mentioned, which is even more precious. In 2000, Barbara Dodd Anderson, Dave’s only child, gave me her father’s copy of the 1934 edition of Security Analysis, inscribed with hundreds of marginal notes. These were inked in by Dave as he prepared for publication of the 1940 revised edition. No gift has meant more to me.
但让我说说我提到的第四本书，它更加珍贵。2000年，戴夫的独生女芭芭拉·多德·安德森赠予我她父亲收藏的1934年版《证券分析》，书中写满了数百条边注。这些批注出自戴夫之手，是他为1940年修订版做准备时留下的。没有哪份礼物对我意义更深。