John C. Bogle

I would always advise young people to follow their star - not my star. They have to live their own life. If they decide they want to go into the investment business, do it, but make it a better business than it is today.

When our financial system - essentially our money managers, marketers of investment products and stockbrokers - put up zero percent of the capital and assume zero percent of the risk yet receive fully 80% of the return, something has gone terribly wrong in our financial system.

Entrepreneurs or international conglomerateurs, or large financial institutions buy or create mutual fund management companies to create a return on their own capital. It's capitalism at work, where the rewards tend to go to the managers rather than the investors.

Net return is simply the gross return of your investment portfolio less the costs you incur. Keep your investment expenses low, for the tyranny of compounding costs can devastate the miracle of compounding returns.

Investing is a virtuous habit best started as early as possible.

Wise investors won't try to outsmart the market.

The Vanguard Experiment was designed to prove that mutual funds could operate independently, and do so in a manner that would directly benefit their shareholders.

We need a mutual fund industry with both vision and values; a vision of fiduciary duty and shareholder service, and values rooted in the proven principles of long-term investing and of trusteeship that demands integrity in serving our clients.

We make too much out of past performance, and it's very misleading to investors. It causes them to move money around. They buy a fund that's hot and then it turns cold as all hot funds eventually do. And then they get out. Well, buying at the high and selling at the low isn't going to leave you a satisfied shareholder, right?

I like Burton Malkiel's 'A Random Walk Down Wall Street.' He comes to the same conclusion that I do - that indexing is the way. My 'Little Book of Common Sense Investing' says pretty much the same thing.

As I have said before, the daily machinations of the stock market are like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Nothing is simpler than owning the stock market and holding it forever, and that's essentially the idea behind the index fund.

Rely on the ordinary virtues that intelligent, balanced human beings have relied on for centuries: common sense, thrift, realistic expectations, patience, and perseverance.

Regardless of what happens in the markets, stick to your investment program. Changing your strategy at the wrong time can be the single most devastating mistake you can make as an investor.

Eliminate emotion from your investment program.

The grim irony of investing is that we investors as a group not only don't get what we pay for, we get precisely what we don't pay for.

A fiduciary standard means, basically, put the interests of the client first. No excuses. Period.

If you put nothing away for retirement, I can tell you, to the last penny, how much you will have when you retire: nothing.

Mutual funds with superior performance records often falter.

Working for company X and having a substantial portion of your retirement plan in company X is simply exposing yourself to too much risk, because the company is both your employer and the source of your retirement income. So if something goes wrong, you lose both your job and your retirement plan.

It seems to me - particularly for these retirement-plan investors, the vast majority of whom are not particularly financially sophisticated - by far the best way is to invest in index funds.