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.

The courage to press on regardless - regardless of whether we face calm seas or rough seas, and especially when the market storms howl around us - is the quintessential attribute of the successful investor.

If the data do not prove that indexing wins, well, the data are wrong.

I'd be the first to agree that capitalism bestows its blessings unevenly. But that wouldn't persuade me to think it was a good idea to do away with those blessings in their entirety. That said, there is lots of work to be done to make capitalism work better, and to broaden its blessings far more widely not only in America, but all over the globe.

We are facing incredible challenges in the economy of the U.S. and the economy of the globe, but the stock market, we never know whether it's over-discounted or under-discounted or got exactly right its anticipation.

My biggest prediction for the future is that people are going to start looking after individual investors.

Your success in investing will depend in part on your character and guts, and in part on your ability to realize at the height of ebullience and the depth of despair alike that this too shall pass.