Joel Tillinghast on independent thinking

On the whole, students with high grade point averages achieve them through curiosity and diligence, but it's also possible to get high marks by gaming the system, sucking up to professors, and regurgitating whatever they want to hear.  In investing, where doing nothing often prevents blunders, a certain style of laziness is adaptive, but mental laziness isn't, and not thinking independently is absolutely toxic.  The entire game is about figuring out what others have missed.  The largest prizes go to those who think differently and correctly.  Some investing ideas will look stupid or crazy, and a few will be, but the alternative is mediocrity.  Depending on the results, you will be called courageous, or arrogant and foolhardy.  Don't be ashamed of error, only of failing to correct it.

~ Joel Tillinghast, Big Money Thinks Small, p. 41