The only true path in life.

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If your goal in life is to get rich, value investing is pretty hard to beat. Sure, there are times when it falls out of favor, when even the greatest practitioners find themselves dismissed as fusty has-beans who have lost their touch. But It's such a robust and fundamentally sound way to invest that it eventually regains its luster. Irrational exuberance comes and goes. The quest for value endures.

Still, this is not just a stock-picking strategy that can make you rich. To me, even the phrase itself -- "value investing" -- implies something deeper than merely accumulating the millions required to buy a mansion in Greenwich, a ski chalet in Gstaad, and a gleaming Ferrari. As Warren Buffett's life exemplifies, what we are also talking about here is a quest for true value--for some kind of meaning that goes beyond money, professional advancement, or social cachet.

I don't mean to dismiss or deride those things. While I'm slightly sheepish about my baser, more capitalist instincts, I'm not thatsheepish ... I do still drive a convertible Porsche, even though I'm mildly embarrassed to admit it. And I'm so obsessed with my pursuit of the perfect cappuccino that I spent $6,000 on an exquisite La Marzocco coffee machine, which I imported from Florence. I try to justify these excesses by contemplating the image of Sir John Templeton--who gave a fortune to charity--driving a Rolls Royce...