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

Index funds eliminate the risks of individual stocks, market sectors, and manager selection. Only stock market risk remains.

The grim irony of investing, then, 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. So if we pay for nothing, we get everything.

In the long run, investing is not about markets at all. Investing is about enjoying the returns earned by businesses.

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.

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.

Without getting into brothels, there are ethical capitalists the problem is that there aren't enough of them. It is not "just a few bad apples" that have been evident in our corporations, our investment bankers and our mutual funds, but so many that one has to concede that the barrel itself needs some work.