Top 120 Peter Lynch Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “All the math you need in the stock market you get in the fourth grade.”

— Peter Lynch

2. “Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves.”

— Peter Lynch

3. “Know what you own, and know why you own it.”

— Peter Lynch

4. “Invest in what you know.”

— Peter Lynch

5. “An important key to investing is to remember that stocks are not lottery tickets.”

— Peter Lynch

6. “You get recessions, you have stock market declines. If you don’t understand that’s going to happen, then you’re not ready, you won’t do well in the markets.”

— Peter Lynch

7. “Nobody can predict interest rates, the future direction of the economy or the stock market. Dismiss all such forecasts and concentrate on what’s actually happening to the companies in which you’ve invested.”

— Peter Lynch

8. “Just because you buy a stock and it goes up does not mean you are right. Just because you buy a stock and it goes down does not mean you are wrong.”

— Peter Lynch

9. “There is always something to worry about. Avoid weekend thinking and ignoring the latest dire predictions of the newscasters. Sell a stock because the company’s fundamentals deteriorate, not because the sky is falling.”

— Peter Lynch

10. “When stocks are attractive, you buy them. Sure, they can go lower. I’ve bought stocks at $12 that went to $2, but then they later went to $30. You just don’t know when you can find the bottom.”

— Peter Lynch

11. “Everyone has the brain power to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach.”

— Peter Lynch

12. “In the long run, it’s not just how much money you make that will determine your future prosperity. It’s how much of that money you put to work by saving it and investing it.”

— Peter Lynch

13. “The person that turns over the most rocks wins the game. And that’s always been my philosophy.”

— Peter Lynch

14. “When you sell in desperation, you always sell cheap.”

— Peter Lynch

15. “Never invest in a company without understanding its finances. The biggest losses in stocks come from companies with poor balance sheets.”

— Peter Lynch

16. “Stocks are a safe bet, but only if you stay invested long enough to ride out the corrections.”

— Peter Lynch

17. “Your ultimate success or failure will depend on your ability to ignore the worries of the world long enough to allow your investments to succeed.”

— Peter Lynch

18. “Charts are great for predicting the past.”

— Peter Lynch

19. “Equity mutual funds are the perfect solution for people who want to own stocks without doing their own research.”

— Peter Lynch

20. “I don’t know anyone who said on their deathbed: ‘Gee, I wish I’d spent more time at the office.’”

— Peter Lynch

21. “You can’t see the future through a rearview mirror.”

— Peter Lynch

22. “If you can’t find any companies that you think are attractive, put your money in the bank until you discover some.”

— Peter Lynch

23. “Time is on your side when you own shares of superior companies.”

— Peter Lynch

24. “The simpler it is, the better I like it.”

— Peter Lynch

25. “The stock market really isn’t a gamble, as long as you pick good companies that you think will do well, and not just because of the stock price.”

— Peter Lynch

26. “A stock market decline is as routine as a January blizzard in Colorado. If you’re prepared, it can’t hurt you. A decline is a great opportunity to pick up the bargains left behind by investors who are fleeing the storm in panic.”

— Peter Lynch

27. “The best stock to buy is the one you already own.”

— Peter Lynch

28. “You only need a few good stocks in your lifetime. I mean how many times do you need a stock to go up ten-fold to make a lot of money? Not a lot.”

— Peter Lynch

29. “I deal in facts, not forecasting the future. That’s crystal ball stuff. That doesn’t work.”

— Peter Lynch

30. “You should not buy a stock because it’s cheap but because you know a lot about it.”

— Peter Lynch

31. “The typical big winner in the Lynch portfolio generally takes three to ten years to play out.”

— Peter Lynch

32. “Never invest in any idea you can’t illustrate with a crayon.”

— Peter Lynch

33. “Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it’s doing.”

— Peter Lynch

34. “Searching for companies is like looking for grubs under rocks: if you turn over 10 rocks you’ll likely find one grub; if you turn over 20 rocks you’ll find two.”

— Peter Lynch

35. “When even the analysts are bored, it’s time to start buying.”

— Peter Lynch

36. “I think you have to learn that there’s a company behind every stock, and that there’s only one real reason why stocks go up. Companies go from doing poorly to doing well or small companies grow to large companies.”

— Peter Lynch

37. “The real key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them.”

— Peter Lynch

38. “If you’re prepared to invest in a company, then you ought to be able to explain why in simple language that a fifth grader could understand, and quickly enough so the fifth grader won’t get bored.”

— Peter Lynch

39. “Avoid hot stocks in hot industries.”

— Peter Lynch

40. “Spend at least as much time researching a stock as you would choosing a refrigerator.”

— Peter Lynch

41. “Hold no more stocks than you can remain informed on.”

— Peter Lynch

42. “As I look back on it now, it’s obvious that studying history and philosophy was much better preparation for the stock market than, say, studying statistics.”

— Peter Lynch

43. “Investing is fun and exciting, but dangerous if you don’t do any work.”

— Peter Lynch

44. “What makes stocks valuable in the long run isn’t the market. It’s the profitability of the shares in the companies you own. As corporate profits increase, corporations become more valuable and sooner or later, their shares will sell for a higher price.”

— Peter Lynch

45. “In business, competition is never as healthy as total domination.”

— Peter Lynch

46. “If you can follow only one bit of data, follow the earnings – assuming the company in question has earnings. I subscribe to the crusty notion that sooner or later earnings make or break an investment in equities. What the stock price does today, tomorrow, or next week is only a distraction.”

— Peter Lynch

47. “I spend about fifteen minutes a year on economic analysis.”

— Peter Lynch

48. “The biggest winners are surprises to me, and takeovers are even more surprising. It takes years, not months, to produce big results.”

— Peter Lynch

49. “I’ve always said, the key organ here isn’t the brain, it’s the stomach. When things start to decline – there are bad headlines in the papers and on television – will you have the stomach for the market volatility and the broad-based pessimism that tends to come with it?”

— Peter Lynch

50. “There’s no shame in losing money on a stock. Everybody does it. What is shameful is to hold on to a stock, or worse, to buy more of it when the fundamentals are deteriorating.”

— Peter Lynch