I would always advise young people to follow their star - not my star. They have to live their own life. If they decide they want to go into the investment business, do it, but make it a better business than it is today.
John C. BogleRead
Rely on the ordinary virtues that intelligent, balanced human beings have relied on for centuries: common sense, thrift, realistic expectations, patience, and perseverance.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of fundamental virtues like common sense and perseverance in achieving success.
John C. Bogle highlights that throughout history, intelligent and balanced individuals have depended on essential virtues such as common sense, thriftiness, realistic expectations, patience, and perseverance. These timeless qualities are foundational for personal and financial success, reminding us to cultivate and rely on them in our lives.
In practice
During a workshop on personal finance, one could quote this to illustrate the importance of practical virtues.
I would always advise young people to follow their star - not my star. They have to live their own life. If they decide they want to go into the investment business, do it, but make it a better business than it is today.
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.
Entrepreneurs or international conglomerateurs, or large financial institutions buy or create mutual fund management companies to create a return on their own capital. It's capitalism at work, where the rewards tend to go to the managers rather than the investors.
Net return is simply the gross return of your investment portfolio less the costs you incur. Keep your investment expenses low, for the tyranny of compounding costs can devastate the miracle of compounding returns.
Investing is a virtuous habit best started as early as possible.
Wise investors won't try to outsmart the market.
Talent finds its models, methods, and ends in society, exists for exhibition, and goes to the soul only for power to work. Genius is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its architecture from within.
The more difficult a problem becomes, the more interesting it is.
There is nothing like first-hand evidence.
When you decide to follow a certain path, you should follow it to the end and not be diverted from it for personal reasons.
There aren't many such enthusiasts born. The average person is not especially curious about the world. He is alive, and being somehow obliged to deal with this condition, feels the less effort it requires, the better. Whereas learning about the world is labor, and a great all-consuming one at that. Most people develop quite antithetical talents, in fact - to look without seeing, to listen without hearing, mainly to preserve onself within oneself.
Memory, when duly impregnated with ascertained facts, is sometimes surprisingly fertile.
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