Quotes from John C. Bogle

The long-term focus of index funds is a much needed counterweight to the short-termism favored by so many market participants.

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

There's no perfection in family life, and certainly we aren't perfect, but we're probably about as close as we can be.

They were tough times and I started working when I was 10 years old, delivering papers and eventually becoming a waiter.

I'm not sure I really am an entrepreneur. I'm not much of a businessman. I know I'm not a marketing guy. I do have an entrepreneurial lineage, though.

Investing is not nearly as difficult as it looks. Successful investing involves doing a few things right and avoiding serious mistakes.

Diversification has been, and balance, like Wellington, has been so drummed into me, it's part of my personality.

The best rule for philanthropy is to give until it hurts, as much as you can, because none of us can get through life all by ourselves.

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.

Have rational expectations for future returns and avoid changing those expectations in response to the ephemeral noise coming from Wall Street.

Mutual funds with superior performance records often falter.

I tend to give to those who have helped me along the road of life: Blair Academy, Princeton University, our church, and several hospitals that got me here in one piece. On the community side, I've always been a big supporter of the United Way.

If you have trouble imagining a 20% loss in the stock market, you shouldn't be in stocks.

You know the rule of 72, divide the number into 72, any number you want, and that's how long it will take your money to double.

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

If the job of capitalism is to create wealth for those who put up the capital, no fund group comes close to Vanguard's success in serving its owners. So we're probably as far away from communism as is realistically possible.

My grandfather was a wealthy and respected merchant in Montclair, New Jersey, where I was born. But his estate was wiped out in the Great Depression, and as a result, I had what I consider the ideal upbringing: We were a proud family, good citizens, and we didn't have a sou.

It is the power of words and books - explaining and dramatizing great ideas and articulating high ideals - that is the greatest weapon in the missionary's arsenal.

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.

Well, bitcoin is a currency. Bitcoin has no underlying rate of return. You know, bonds have an interest coupon. Stocks have earnings and dividends. Gold has nothing, and bitcoin has nothing. There is nothing to support the bitcoin except the hope that you will sell it to somebody for more than you paid for it.

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.

While the interests of the business are served by the aphorism 'Don't just stand there. Do something!' the interests of investors are served by an approach that is its diametrical opposite: 'Don't do something. Just stand there!'

What we need is congressional action to establish a federal principle of fiduciary duty - encapsulated by the phrase 'no man can serve two masters.'

The multiple failings of our flawed financial sector are jeopardizing, not only the retirement security of our nation's savers but the economy in which our entire society participates.