Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.

A blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by experts.

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

The most important rule of investing is to play defense first.

I’ve learned many things from George Soros, but perhaps the most significant is that it’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.

The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

The four most dangerous words in investing are: This time it’s different.

The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.

The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor.

History constantly reminds us that in an uncertain world there is no visibility to the future, and we must depend on a number of simple principles and probabilities to guide us.

He who lives by the crystal ball will eat shattered glass.

What seems too high and risky to the majority generally goes higher, and what seems low and cheap generally goes lower.

The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting.

It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.

Know what you own, and know why you own it.

The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator.

The single greatest edge an investor can have is a long-term orientation.

You can’t predict. You can prepare.

The hardest thing in investing is finding that balance between conviction and flexibility.

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

JOHN C BOGLE

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