John C. Bogle

“With actively managed funds, people have big behavior problems. With funds that have done well, they put their money in, and when it has done bad, they want to take it out.”

“When our financial system - essentially our money managers, marketers of investment products and stockbrokers - put up zero percent of the capital and assume zero percent of the risk yet receive fully 80% of the return, something has gone terribly wrong in our financial system.”

“I do think that impact investing is not that effective. Shares go from investor A to investor B, and the company doesn't even know it. It's inevitably an ineffective way to communicate to the company your feelings.”

“In my long experience, one thing I know is that truth is elusive.”

“Regardless of what happens in the markets, stick to your investment program. Changing your strategy at the wrong time can be the single most devastating mistake you can make as an investor.”

“My father's money vanished in the Great Depression, and he had trouble keeping a job.”

“The average hedge fund manager is going to earn zero per cent in extra return.”

“Eliminate emotion from your investment program.”

“The index fund always gives you the market return.”

“I've been studying mutual funds since 1949, when I began researching my senior thesis at Princeton University.”

“If the job of capitalism is to create wealth for those who put up the capital, no fund group comes close to Vanguard's success in serving its owners. So we're probably as far away from communism as is realistically possible.”

“The market is often stupid, but you can't focus on that. Focus on the underlying value of dividends and earnings.”

“The reality of life is, if you have a bagel shop and everybody is pouring into the doughnut shop across the street, if you want to stay in business, you start selling doughnuts.”

“There's no such thing as wealth without risk.”

“We make too much out of past performance, and it's very misleading to investors. It causes them to move money around. They buy a fund that's hot and then it turns cold as all hot funds eventually do. And then they get out. Well, buying at the high and selling at the low isn't going to leave you a satisfied shareholder, right?”

“I was never the type who had a particular ambition. I had friends in college who would say, 'I want to be a vice president by the time I'm 35 years old.' A lot of people had these career plans. I didn't have any. I thought if I did my best, good things would happen.”

“I tend to give to those who have helped me along the road of life: Blair Academy, Princeton University, our church, and several hospitals that got me here in one piece. On the community side, I've always been a big supporter of the United Way.”

“The best rule for philanthropy is to give until it hurts, as much as you can, because none of us can get through life all by ourselves.”

“Working for company X and having a substantial portion of your retirement plan in company X is simply exposing yourself to too much risk, because the company is both your employer and the source of your retirement income. So if something goes wrong, you lose both your job and your retirement plan.”

“My incentive in starting Vanguard, I'm very blunt about this, it was my means of preserving my career. That's a very selfish thing.”