Top 100 George Soros Quotes
#1. Of course, speculation will always make a crisis worse. If there is a weak point, it will expose it.
George Soros
#2. Political debate is more interested in manipulating the truth, than finding the truth.
George Soros
#3. The sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions.
George Soros
#4. We must recognize that as the dominant power in the world we have a special responsibility. In addition to protecting our national interests, we must take the leadership in protecting the common interests of humanity.
George Soros
#5. Fundamental analysis seeks to establish how underlying values are reflected in stock prices, whereas the theory of reflexivity shows how stock prices can influence underlying values
George Soros
#6. When interest rates are low we have conditions for asset bubbles to develop, and they are developing at the moment. The ultimate asset bubble is gold.
George Soros
#7. My conceptual framework, which basically emphasizes the importance of misconceptions, makes me extremely critical of my own decisions. I know that I am bound to be wrong, and therefore am more likely to correct my own mistakes.
George Soros
#8. By creating the European Central Bank, the member states exposed their own government bonds to the risk of default. Developed countries that issue bonds in their own currency never default, because they can always print money. Their currency may depreciate, but the risk of default is absent.
George Soros
#10. Increase your bets when you are confident and scale down your positions when you don't have conviction.
George Soros
#11. The bureaucratic method of building an integrated Europe has exhausted its potential.
George Soros
#12. The dark comes before dawn. The financial markets are under great pressure because of the lack of leadership during the transition period.
George Soros
#13. I called gold the ultimate bubble, which means it may go higher. But it's certainly not safe and it's not going to last forever.
George Soros
#14. Discount the obvious, bet on the unexpected
George Soros
#15. We are the most powerful nation on earth. No external power, no terrorist organization, can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire.
George Soros
#16. Giving government aid to a bank basically transforms it into a utility. The huge salaries in this sector are only a symptom of a more profound misalignment. The profitability of the finance industry has been excessive. That is absurd.
George Soros
#17. Find the trend whose premise is false, and bet against it.
George Soros
#18. There is always a divergence between our perception and what actually exists.
George Soros
#19. Taking this view, it is possible to see financial markets as a laboratory for testing hypotheses, albeit not strictly scientific ones. The truth is, successful investing is a kind of alchemy.
George Soros
#20. Stock market bubbles don't grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but reality as distorted by a misconception.
George Soros
#21. As I discovered, there is a great deal of similarity between a boom-bust process in the financial markets and the rise and fall of the Soviet system.
George Soros
#22. Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.
George Soros
#23. The US needs a cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights. The revenues from these auctions can be used to launch a new, environmentally friendly energy policy. That would be yet another federal program that could help us to overcome the stagnation.
George Soros
#24. The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios ... The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market.
George Soros
#25. If every rich person gave 50 percent of their wealth to charity, I would not say they should pay more taxes.
George Soros
#26. The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposite position. I assume that markets are always wrong.
George Soros
#27. Making an investment decision is like formulating a scientific hypothesis and submitting it to a practical test. The main difference is that the hypothesis that underlies an investment decision is intended to make money and not to establish a universally valid generalization.
George Soros
#28. I very often used to get backaches due to the fact that I was wrong. Whenever you are wrong you have to fight or [take] flight. When [I] make the decision, the backache goes away.
George Soros
#29. Most of the poverty and misery in the world is due to bad government, lack of democracy, weak states, internal strife, and so on.
George Soros
#30. To my mind, there is a solution which has to do with democracy, because democratic governments are subject to the will of the people. So, if the people will it, you can actually create international institutions through the democratic states.
George Soros
#31. It is credit that matters, not money (in other words, monetarism is a false ideology).
George Soros
#32. The people currently in charge have forgotten the first principle of an open society, namely that we may be wrong and that there has to be free discussion. That it's possible to be opposed to the policies without being unpatriotic.
George Soros
#33. The assumption of perfect knowledge is very far from reality ... a lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional.
George Soros
#34. The strength of this country lies in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and the freedom of speech and thought.
George Soros
#35. Economics seeks to be a science. Science is supposed to be objective and it is difficult to be scientific when the subject matter, the participant in the economic process, lacks objectivity.
George Soros
#36. Now that I have called you on your false accusation, you are using additional smear tactics.
George Soros
#37. The integration of Europe was very much led by a Germany that was always willing to pay a little bit extra to reach a compromise that everybody accepted, because Germany was so eager to get European support for reunification. That was called the "farsighted vision," which created the European Union.
George Soros
#38. Who most benefits from keeping marijuana illegal? The greatest beneficiaries are the major criminal organizations in Mexico and elsewhere that earn billions of dollars annually from this illicit trade - and who would rapidly lose their competitive advantage if marijuana were a legal commodity.
George Soros
#39. You could adjust the punishment to fit the infraction. Even a small fine would be enough to bring an errant government to heel.
George Soros
#40. I think there's a lot of merit in an international economy and global markets, but they're not sufficient because markets don't look after social needs.
George Soros
#41. This crisis has the potential to be a lot worse than Lehman Brothers.
George Soros
#42. I see tremendous imbalance in the world. A very uneven playing field, which has gotten tilted very badly. I consider it unstable. At the same time, I don't exactly see what is going to reverse it.
George Soros
#43. Revolutions usually start with enthusiasm and end in tears.
George Soros
#44. Esperanto was a very useful language, because wherever you went, you found someone to speak with.
George Soros
#45. If the choice is between cooking alive and wasting money unnecessarily I would rather waste some money, because long before we cook we are going to kill each other if we don't deal with climate change.
George Soros
#46. I contend that financial markets never reflect the underlying reality accurately; they always distort it in some way or another and the distortions find expression in market prices. Those distortions can, occasionally, find ways to affect the fundamentals that market prices are supposed to reflect.
George Soros
#47. Unfortunately, the more complex the system, the greater the room for error.
George Soros
#48. Everybody says that I have a lot of power. But what does that power consist of? ... Can I influence governments? I am beginning to be able to ... (1995)
George Soros
#49. Unrestrained competition can drive people into actions that they would otherwise regret.
George Soros
#50. There is no point in being confident and having a small position.
George Soros
#51. Financial markets ... resent any kind of government interference but they hold a belief deep down that if conditions get really rough the authorities will step in.
George Soros
#52. The worse a situation becomes the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger the upside.
George Soros
#53. Proposition 19 already is a winner no matter what happens on election day. The mere fact of its being on the ballot has elevated and legitimized public discourse about marijuana and marijuana policy in ways I could not have imagined a year ago.
George Soros
#54. At present, the developed countries condescend to the developing ones.
George Soros
#55. I put forward a pretty general theory that financial markets are intrinsically unstable. That we really have a false picture when we think about markets tending towards equilibrium.
George Soros
#56. In the case of a meltdown, the regulatory authorities may find themselves obliged to step in to preserve the integrity of the system. It is in that light that the authorities have both a right and an obligation to supervise and regulate derivative instruments.
George Soros
#57. I commissioned two political experts to advise me about what I could do to oppose the re-election of President Bush.
George Soros
#58. Market prices are always wrong in the sense that they present a biased view of the future.
George Soros
#59. As a society we can't live without moral considerations. We do have to protect the public good. And markets are not designed to do that, so we need a political process.
George Soros
#60. My original intention was to spend the money in my lifetime.
George Soros
#61. Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.
George Soros
#62. When a long-term trend loses it's momentum, short-term volatility tends to rise. It is easy to see why that should be so: the trend-following crowd is disoriented.
George Soros
#63. The trouble with institutional investors is that their performance is usually measured relative to their peer group and not by an absolute yardstick. This makes them trend followers by definition.
George Soros
#64. The concept of a general equilibrium has no relevance to the real world (in other words, classical economics is an exercise in futility).
George Soros
#65. Any central bank should only be in charge of liquidity. Solvency is a matter for the treasury.
George Soros
#66. The criminalization of marijuana did not prevent marijuana from becoming the most widely used illegal substance in the United States and many other countries. But it did result in extensive costs and negative consequences.
George Soros
#67. Globalization has rendered the world increasingly interdependent, but international politics is still based on the sovereignty of states.
George Soros
#68. Investors operate with limited funds and intelligence, they do not need to know everything. As long as they understand something better than others, they have an edge ...
George Soros
#69. The scope for improvement is infinite, precisely because perfection is unattainable.
George Soros
#70. When I had made more money than I needed for myself and my family, I set up a foundation to promote the values and principles of a free and open society.
George Soros
#71. I admire Chancellor Merkel for her leadership qualities, but she is leading Europe in the wrong direction.
George Soros
#72. The only thing that could hurt me is if my success encouraged me to return to my childhood fantasies of omnipotence - but that is not likely to happen as long as I remain engaged in the financial markets, because they constantly remind me of my limitations.
George Soros
#73. Every bubble has two components: something - some real trend, and a misconception about that trend.
George Soros
#74. There is a well-established conviction that the central banks always do what is necessary to keep the system going and then afterwards you then take care of the legal aspects. In a crisis, you simply do not have time to think about such concerns for too long.
George Soros
#75. There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that. It's not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti-Semitism as well.
George Soros
#76. Every bubble consists of a trend that can be observed in the real world and a misconception relating to that trend. The two elements interact with each other in a reflexive manner.
George Soros
#77. To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride.
George Soros
#78. The main obstacle to further progress on the resource curse is China, and to a lesser extent India.
George Soros
#79. I don't panic. The same thing applies to me as to everybody else, so I'm given to euphoria and despair. And I would say that I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes.
George Soros
#80. Law has become a business. Health care has become a business. Unfortunately, politics has also become a business. That really undermines society.
George Soros
#81. My approach works not by making valid predictions but by allowing me to correct false ones.
George Soros
#82. Increasingly, the Chinese will own a lot more of the world because they will be converting their dollar reserves and U.S. government bonds into real assets.
George Soros
#83. Destroying America will be the culmination of my life's work.
George Soros
#84. Mankind's ability to understand and control the forces of nature greatly exceeds our ability to govern ourselves
George Soros
#85. China could easily emerge as the great winner if the Chinese leaders handle the situation well. On the other hand, they could also turn out to be the biggest losers if they handle it poorly. If the management turns out be wrong, this could lead to a political crisis in China.
George Soros
#86. Just as the process of repealing national alcohol prohibition began with individual states repealing their own prohibition laws, so individual states must now take the initiative with respect to repealing marijuana prohibition laws.
George Soros
#87. A full and fair discussion is essential to democracy.
George Soros
#88. The main difference between me and other people who have amassed this kind of money is that I am primarily interested in ideas, and I don't have much personal use for money.
George Soros
#89. An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others.
George Soros
#90. Once a trend is established it tends to persist and to run it's full course.
George Soros
#91. Playing by the rules, one does the best he can, irrespective of the social consequences. Whereas in making the rules, people ought to be concerned with the social consequences and not with their personal interests.
George Soros
#92. I chose America as my home because I value freedom and democracy, civil liberties and an open society.
George Soros
#93. Everything adds up to a major crisis. Humanity is faced with a global energy crisis ... The core of the crisis lies in the increasing shortage of oil.
George Soros
#94. I am not a Zionist, nor am I am a practicing Jew, but I have a great deal of sympathy for my fellow Jews and a deep concern for the survival of Israel.
George Soros
#95. I'm not doing my philanthropic work, out of any kind of guilt, or any need to create good public relations. I'm doing it because I can afford to do it, and I believe in it.
George Soros
#96. We can speak of the triumph of capitalism in the world, but we cannot yet speak about the triumph of democracy. There is a serious mismatch between the political and the economic conditions that prevail in the world today.
George Soros
#97. I'm only rich because I know when I'm wrong.
George Soros
#98. If we carry this line of argument to its logical conclusion, the meaning of life consists of the flaws in one's conceptions and what one does about them. Life can be seen as a fertile fallacy.
George Soros
#99. The pro-Israel lobby has been remarkably successful in suppressing criticism. Politicians challenge it at their peril because of the lobby's ability to influence political contributions.
George Soros
#100. Markets are imperfect. So you do need regulation, knowing that the regulators are also human.
George Soros
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