The historical data support one conclusion with unusual force: To invest with success, you must be a long-term investor.

The mutual fund industry has been built, in a sense, on witchcraft.

I think it's fairly easy to provide a moral defense of capitalism. It has been - over the last 200 years - the underlying basis for enormous increases in productivity and human welfare and rising living standards, particularly in the United States, and in the industrialized nations but in fact, in most parts of the world.

Ask yourself: Am I an investor, or am I a speculator? An investor is a person who owns business and holds it forever and enjoys the returns that U.S. businesses, and to some extent global businesses, have earned since the beginning of time. Speculation is betting on price. Speculation has no place in the portfolio or the kit of the typical investor.

The mistakes we make as investors is when the market's going up, we think it's going to go up forever. When the market goes down, we think it's going to go down forever. Neither of those things actually happen. Doesn't do anything forever. It's by the moment.

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.

It's amazing how difficult it is for a man to understand something if he's paid a small fortune not to understand it.