Don't sell stock and you don't have to worry about volatility

Later in Against the Gods, Peter Bernstein comes close to what I'll be writing about in my own book on income investing.

He points out that the volatility Harry Markowitz posits as equal to stock market risk does not matter to "For true long-term investors -- that small group of people like Warren Buffett who can shut their eyes to short-term fluctuations and who have no doubt that what goes down will come back up -- volatility represents opportunity rather than risk, at least to the extent that volatile securitites tend to provide higher returns than more placid securities."

In that sentence he cannot get away from a concern with market price. But he does mention his wife's late aunt who used to boast that she was his only in-law who never asked him what he thought the market was going to do.

"I didn't buy in order to sell," Bernstein quotes his aunt-in-law.

Most people don't understand this attitude -- but it's perfectly logical if you are buying to receive dividends for the rest of your life.

Then you don't need to care about the market price, as long as you continue to receive ever-incresing dividend checks every quarter.
Your only risk is the danger that the company will decrease, suspend or end its quarterly dividend payments.

dividends overcome volatility
dividends overcome volatility