Jesse Livermore – Gems of Wisdom.

From the Crosshair Trader Blog:

Excerpts from an interview with Jesse Livermore, considered one of the world’s greatest traders. The Interview was taken in 1922.
Trading all the time:

There is a time for all things, but I didn’t know it. There is the plain fool, who does the wrong thing at all times everywhere, but there is the Wall Street fool, who thinks he must trade all the time. The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses in Wall Street.

Getting stock tips:
But the average man doesn’t wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn’t even wish to have to think.

Letting profits run
The big money was not in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements that is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend. And right here let me say one thing: 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 the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! I’ve known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level, which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine –that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make big money.

Going with the Trend
Obviously the thing to do is to be bullish in a bull market and bearish in a bear market.