Only the Right Side | Jesse Livermore

» It takes a man a long time to learn all the lessons of his mistakes. 

They say there are two sides to everything.
But there is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or bear side but the right side.
It took me longer to get that principle fixed firmly in my mind 

than it did most of the more technical phases of the game of stock speculation.

 

 I have heard of people who amuse themselves conducting imaginary operations in the
stock market to prove with imaginary dollars how right they are. 

Sometimes these ghost gamblers make millions. 

It is very easy to be a plunger that way.

 

It is like the old story of the man who was going to fight a duel the next day.

His second asked him, "Are you a good shot?"
"Well," said the duelist, "I can snap the stem of a wineglass at twenty paces," and he looked modest.
"That's all very well," said the unimpressed second. 

"But can you snap the stem of the wineglass while the wineglass is pointing a loaded pistol straight at your heart?" «

Jesse Livermore

Quoted from:
Edwin Lefèvre (1923) - Reminiscences of a Stock Operator.