Washington once advised his adopted grandson that where there is no occasion for expressing an opinion, it is best to be silent. For there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.

When news of the crash came, probably a lot of people in small towns and farms across America felt a sense of grim satisfaction that the sinners had finally been punished for their wicked ways.

A lot of the money in the stock market is really our national retirement plan, for better or worse.

I think those who invest in mutual funds want someone else to do the thinking for them. But the fact that they can move the money around the family of mutual funds just through a phone call lets them feel that they can play tycoons.

As the bull market goes on, people who take great risks achieve great rewards, seemingly without punishment. It's like crime without punishment or sex without sin.

Mutual funds have historically offered safety and diversification. And they spare you the responsibility of picking individual stocks.

I think there's a tide that tends to carry historians back to the past.