Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

by John C. Bogle

I am under no illusions. It won’t be easy, and surely won’t be fully accomplished in my lifetime. But I hardly need to remind you, using Thomas Paine’s most famous words, written one year before General George Washington’s battered army bivouacked in Valley Forge, enduring the bitter winter of 1777-1778: “These are the times that try men’s souls. . . . ’ Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death . . . . Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”