66 Jesse Livermore Quotes on Trading, Money and Stocks

Jesse L. Livermore was a famous stock trader in the early 1900s who began his career at 14 with no formal education.

He wrote about his experiences and methods in “How to Trade Stocks” and “My Life in Wall Street and How I Made Three Fortunes in the Stock Market.”

His life and trading strategies are also discussed in “Reminiscences of a Stock Operator” by Edwin Lefevre.

Jesse Livermore Quotes

Livermore made and lost three fortunes by buying in bull markets and selling in bear markets famously profiting during the Panic of 1907 and the Great Depression.

At his peak his wealth was equivalent to $1.5 billion today.

However by 1940 he was bankrupt and sadly took his own life. Livermore’s legacy lives on influencing many in the finance world.

Below are some of the best quotes by Jesse Livermore.


Best Jesse Livermore Quotes

There is time to go long, time to go short and time to go fishing. ~ Jesse Livermore.

There is time to go long, time to go short and time to go fishing. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Patterns repeat, because human nature hasn’t changed for thousands of years. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I can see now that my main trouble was my failure to grasp the vital difference between stock gambling and stock speculation. ~ Jesse Livermore.

It takes a man a long time to learn all the lessons of all his mistakes. ~ Jesse Lauriston Livermore.

The longer the delay starting, the sharper the break will be when it does start. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I have to do my own seeing and my own thinking. ~ Jesse Livermore.

A stock operator has to fight a lot of expensive enemies within himself. ~ Jesse Livermore.

To anticipate the market is to gamble. To be patient and react only when the market gives the signal is to speculate. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Top Jesse Livermore Quotes

All a man needs to know to make money is to appraise conditions. ~ Jesse Livermore.

A man must believe in himself and his judgement if he expects to make a living at this game. That is why I don’t believe in tips. ~ Jesse Livermore.

It is no trick to tell when the market can take what you give it. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I never hesitate to tell a man that I am bullish or bearish. But I do not tell people to buy or sell any particular stock. In a bear market all stocks go down and in a bull market they go up. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I didn’t keep on trading the way I did through stubbornness. I simply wasn’t able to state my own problem to myself, and of course, it was utterly hopeless to try to solve it. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Whenever I read the tape by the light of experience I made money, but when I made a fool play I had to lose. I was no exception was I? ~ Jesse Livermore.

I’d go during my lunch house and buy or sell – it never made any difference to me. I was playing a system and not a favorite stock or backing opinions. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Copper your customers, and grow rich. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Famous Jesse Livermore Quotes

Remember that stocks are never too high for you to begin buying or too low to begin selling. ~ Jesse Livermore.

For a customer to lose money at his brokers is no rare event. But for a customer to make money and then not get it is the worst crime on the speculators’ statute books. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I learned early that there is nothing new in Wall Street. There can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again. I’ve never forgotten that. ~ Jesse Lauriston Livermore.

The game taught me the game. And it didn’t spare the rod while teaching. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I know from experience that nobody can give me a tip or a series of tips that will make more money for me than my own judgement. ~ Jesse Lauriston Livermore.

A busted customer can’t trade. A half-crippled customer can whine and insinuate things and make trouble of one or another kind that hurts business. ~ Jesse Livermore.

A great deal of money used to be made periodically by insiders in the old days out of the shorts and their carefully fostered fears of corners and squeezes. ~ Jesse Livermore.

They always had the hope of getting away from me what I had taken from them. They regarded my winnings as temporary loans, I think. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Wise Jesse Livermore Quotes

They say you never grow poor taking profits. No, you don’t. But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market. ~ Jesse Livermore.

The stock market is never obvious. It is designed to fool most of the people, most of the time. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Not taking the loss, that is what does damage to the pocketbook and to the soul. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Everything happened as I had foreseen. I was dead right and – I lost every cent I had. I was wiped out by something that was unusual. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I have always found it profitable to study my mistakes. ~ Jesse Livermore.

If I hadn’t made money some of the time I might have acquired market wisdom quicker. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Do not anticipate and move without market confirmation — being a little late in your trade is your insurance that you are right or wrong. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I noticed that in advances as well as declines, stock prices were apt to show certain habits, so to speak. ~ Jesse Livermore.

It is the big swing that makes the big money for you. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Of course people always magnify a fellow’s winnings and the size of the line he swings. ~ Jesse Livermore.

If you don’t know who you are, then the stock market is an expensive way to find out. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Profound Jesse Livermore Quotes

I had to go further back than an hour in my studies of the market. Which is something I never would have learned to do. ~ Jesse Livermore.

When I think I should sell, I sell. When I think stocks will go up, I buy. My adherence to that general principle of speculation saved me. ~ Jesse Livermore.

What beat me was not having brains enough to stick to my own game – that is, to play the market only when I was satisfied that precedents favored my play. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Prices are never too high to begin buying or too low to begin selling. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I always made money when I was sure I was right before I began. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I must buy on a rising scale. I don’t buy long stocks on a scale down I buy on a scale up. ~ Jesse Lauriston Livermore.

The market does not beat them. They beat themselves, because though they have brains they cannot sit tight. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I didn’t always win. My plan of trading was sound enough and won oftener than it lost. If I had stuck to it I’d have been right perhaps as often as seven out of ten times. ~ Jesse Lauriston Livermore.

No diagnosis, no prognosis. No prognosis, no profit. ~ Jesse Livermore.

It is foolhardy to make a second trade, if your first trade shows you a loss. Never average losses. Let this thought be written indelibly upon your mind. ~ Jesse Livermore.

The more I made the more I spent. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Popular Jesse Livermore Quotes

I never want to buy stocks too cheap or too easily. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Successful trading is always an emotional battle for the speculator, not an intelligent battle. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Never buy at the bottom, and always sell too soon. ~ Jesse Livermore.

When I couldn’t play according to my system, which was based on study and experience, I went in and gambled. I hoped to win, instead of knowing that I ought to win on form. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I went broke several times, and that is never pleasant., but the way I lost money is the way everybody loses money who loses money in Wall Street. ~ Jesse Livermore.

No person can play the market all the time and win. There are times when you should be completely out of the market, for emotional as well as economic reasons. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I had to study what was going to happen; to anticipate stock movements. That sounds asininely commonplace, but you know what I mean. ~ Jesse Livermore.

After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made big money for me. It was always my sitting. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Men who can be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I have learned to study general conditions, to take a position and stick to it. ~ Jesse Livermore.

The finest art is not to lose money. Making money in the stock market can be done by anybody. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Jesse Livermore Quotes on Investing

There is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side. ~ Jesse Livermore.

The inexorable logic of events was making money for me. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Buy rising stocks and sell falling stocks. ~ Jesse Livermore.

When you know what not to do in order not to lose money, you begin to learn what to do in order to win. You begin to learn! ~ Jesse Livermore.

When it comes to selling stocks, it is plain that nobody can sell unless somebody wants those stocks. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I lost most of my fur, but it was better to live to fight another day. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Before I can solve a problem I must state it to myself. When I think I have found the solution I must prove that I am right. I know of only one way to prove this; and that is, with my own money. ~ Jesse Livermore.

I call a Pivotal Point before I started to trade; I have always made money in my operations. ~ Jesse Livermore.

Markets are never wrong – opinions often are. ~ Jesse Livermore.



You Might Like

Share with others!
Chandan Negi
Chandan Negi

I’m the Founder of Internet Pillar - I love sharing quotes and motivational content to inspire and motivate people - #quotes #motivation #internetpillar