Mon, May 17, 2027

The trades, it is to be observed, which are carried on by means of bounties, are the only ones which can be carried on between two nations for any considerable time together, in such a manner as that one of them shall always and regularly lose, or sell its goods for less than it really cost to send them to market. But if the bounty did not repay to the merchant what he would otherwise lose upon the price of his goods, his own interest would soon oblige him to employ his stock in another way, or to find out a trade in which the price of the goods would replace to him, with the ordinary profit, the capital employed in sending them to market. The effect of bounties, like that of all the other expedients of the mercantile system, can only be to force the trade of a country into a channel much less advantageous than that in which it would naturally run of its own accord.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300
Book IV, Chapter V, paragraph 1164

This is a direct reading: the original and source are kept; commentary will be added later.

心虛則性現，不息心而求見性，如撥波覓月； 意淨則心清，不了意而求明心，如索鏡增塵。

Source： https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E8%8F%9C%E6%A0%B9%E8%AD%9A
第169则

This is a direct reading: the original and source are kept; commentary will be added later.

A tax, however, upon the profits of stock employed in any particular branch of trade, can never fall finally upon the dealers (who must in all ordinary cases have their reasonable profit, and, where the competition is free, can seldom have more than that profit), but always upon the consumers, who must be obliged to pay in the price of the goods the tax which the dealer advances; and generally with some overcharge.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300
Book V, Chapter II, paragraph 1974

This is a direct reading: the original and source are kept; commentary will be added later.

You can only connect them looking backward, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

Source： https://web.archive.org/web/20241227014258/https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2005/06/steve-jobs-2005-graduates-stay-hungry-stay-foolish
Commencement address, passage on connecting the dots, as quoted by Stanford Report

Over the stock market cycle between yearends 2007 and 2013, we overperformed the S&P. Through full cycles in future years, we expect to do that again. If we fail to do so, we will not have earned our pay. After all, you could always own an index fund and be assured of S&P results.

Source： https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2013ltr.pdf
2013 Chairman's Letter, excerpt 4

This is a direct reading: the original and source are kept; commentary will be added later.