159 Quotes by John C. Bogle

Learn every day, but especially from the experiences of others. It’s cheaper!

Pressed to identify useful financial innovations created during the past quarter-century, Paul A. Volcker, former Federal Reserve Chairman and recent chairman of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Board, could single out only one: “The ATM.

Don’t look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!

The simple fact is that selecting a mutual fund that will outpace the stock market over the long term is, using Cervantes’ wonderful observation, like “looking for a needle in the haystack.” So I offer you Bogle’s corollary: “Don’t look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!

The miracle of compounding returns is overwhelmed by the tyranny of compounding costs.

Even for taxable clients, mutual fund managers supervised the assets in very much the same way, simply ignoring the tax impact and passing the tax liability through to largely unsuspecting fund shareholders.

Speculation leads you the wrong way. It allows you to put your emotions first, whereas investment gets emotions out of the picture.

It will also tell you how easy it is to do just that: simply buy the entire stock market. Then, once you have bought your stocks, get out of the casino and stay out. Just hold the market portfolio forever. And that’s what the index fund does. This investment philosophy is not only simple and elegant. The arithmetic on which it is based is irrefutable. But it is not easy to follow its discipline. So.

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