“It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it.”

– Sophocles

“The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the man of inferior emotional balance, nor for the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor.”

– Jesse Livermore

“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.”

– Victoria Holt

“If you listen to financial TV, or read most market columnists, you’d think that investing is some kind of sport, or a war, or a struggle for survival in a hostile wilderness. But investing isn’t about beating others at their game. It’s about controlling yourself at your own game.”

– Jason Zweig

“There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning and yearning.”

– Christopher Morley

“The key is consistency and discipline. Almost anybody can make up a list of rules that are 80% as good as what we taught. What they can’t do is give (people) the confidence to stick to those rules even when things are going bad.”

– Richard Dennis, on Turtle Trading

“I don’t think trading strategies are as vulnerable to not working if people know about them, as most traders believe. If what you are doing is right, it will work even if people have a general idea about it. I always say you could publish rules in a newspaper and no one would follow them. The key is consistency and discipline.”

– Richard Dennis

“Nearly all the successful traders I have known are one-trick ponies. They do one thing, and they do it very well. When they stray from that single focus, it often ends in disaster.”

– Steve Clark

POSITIONING: Heron stands in the blue estuary, Solitary, white, unmoving for hours. A fish! Quick avian darting; The prey captured.

People always ask how to follow Tao. It is as easy and natural as the heron standing in the water. The bird moves when it must; it does not move when stillness is appropriate.

The secret of its serenity is a type of vigilance, a contemplative state. The heron is not in mere dumbness or sleep. It knows a lucid stillness. It stands unmoving in the flow of the water. It gazes unperturbed and is aware. When Tao brings it something that it needs, it seizes the opportunity without hesitation or deliberation. Then it goes back to its quiescence without disturbing itself or its surroundings. Unless it found the right position in the water’s flow and remained patient, it would not have succeeded.

Actions in life can be reduced to two factors: positioning and timing. If we are not in the right place at the right time, we cannot possibly take advantage of what life has to offer us. Almost anything is appropriate if an action is in accord with the time and the place. But we must be vigilant and prepared. Even if the time and the place are right, we can still miss our chance if we do not notice the moment, if we act inadequately, or if we hamper ourselves with doubts and second thoughts. When life presents an opportunity, we must be ready to seize it without hesitation or inhibition. Position is useless without awareness. If we have both, we make no mistakes.

365 Tao: Daily Meditations
Deng Ming-Dao