About

Background

Education: History and political thought, with a focus on Condorcet and the Enlightenment.

Languages: English (fluent), French, German, Italian, Spanish, Classical Latin (grammar), Ancient Greek (grammar)

Investing: Value investing in the tradition of Graham, Munger, and Templeton — with quantitative tools

Why this site

Years studying Condorcet and the philosophes taught me one thing: ideas matter, and the best ones compound across centuries. Condorcet wrote about human progress under the shadow of the guillotine. Spinoza ground lenses for a living while writing the Ethics. 陈寅恪 continued his scholarship for thirty years after going blind.

I write because thinking clearly is a practice, not a talent. And because the intersection of Western and Eastern thought deserves more exploration than it gets.

The archive now contains over 400 source-grounded essays covering investment discipline, mental models, practical philosophy, and research methodology. Every article draws from public books, shareholder letters, transcripts, or documented research — not anonymous tips, proprietary signals, or market rumors.

What this site is not

This is not a stock-picking service, a paid signal feed, or a trading chatroom. I hold no advisory license. The investment content is educational: frameworks, history, evidence, and failure modes. If you are looking for buy/sell instructions or target prices, this is the wrong place.

Principles

  1. Never recommend specific securities — I have no advisory license, and you should think for yourself
  2. Source everything — claims trace back to books, data, or named sources
  3. Long time horizon — I measure in decades, not quarters
  4. Inner Scorecard — I write what I believe, not what gets clicks
  5. Festina lente — make haste slowly

How articles are made

Each article follows a documented process: source identification, evidence mapping, privacy and compliance review, structural quality check, and automated gate verification before publication. The Methods and Boundaries page explains this in detail.

The site uses a 40-point automated quality gate that checks every published page for content depth, internal linking, structured data, navigation clarity, and editorial boundary compliance.

Contact

  • WeChat Official Account: 柔和谦卑 履责 求知 (sustine_et_abstine)
  • X: @CharlieLam61499
  • Corrections, feedback, and questions: Contact page

Zwei Dinge erfüllen das Gemüt mit immer neuer und zunehmender Bewunderung und Ehrfurcht: der bestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir.

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

— Kant, Critique of Practical Reason