Soros Quotes

#1. You can't have bank holding companies acting as hedge funds. You can't have them taking a million-dollar pension plan for Joe Schmo the bus driver and treat it with the same risk appetite that you treat George Soros' pocket money. It's fundamentally ridiculous.

Shia Labeouf

#2. My lesson from Soros is to start every meeting at my boutique by convincing everyone that we are a bunch of idiots who know nothing and are mistake-prone, but happen to be endowed with the rare privilege of knowing it.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

#3. Some hedge fund managers have made big bucks trading oil futures - George Soros is one.

Gary Weiss

#4. George Soros finances liberal immigration policy throughout the Western world and also funds Noel Ignatiev and his "Race Traitor" website dedicated to the abolition of the white race. So

Kevin Macdonald

#5. An undeniable truth is that while Obama and Pelosi and George Soros and whoever else tell you and me to get off oil, they won't - they're the elites. They're smarter, they're running the world, and they have to be able to get to where they have to go.

Rush Limbaugh

#6. A Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, George Soros, or Al Gore looks - no, acts - like he either came out of a hairstylist's salon or got off a Gulfstream.

Victor Davis Hanson

#7. If we have another 2,000 people killed, I want Nancy Pelosi and George Soros, John Conyers and Pat Leahy to go to the funeral and say, 'Your son was vaporized because we didn't want to dump some guy's head under water for 30 seconds.'

Peter T. King

#8. Soros and the Tides Foundation have been trying to indoctrinate our kids. Do you remember that stupid what was the name of that film that they did? [clip comes up on monitor] There it is, The Story of Stuff .

Glenn Beck

#9. If the Americans would only take all the money they have spent on this war (Iraq), and spend it like Soros has done on civil societies in these countries, then in 10 years they would have wonderful results.

Orhan Pamuk

#10. According to George Soros, what's important is not whether you're right or wrong about the market. What's important is how much money you make when you're right about a trade, and how much money you lose when you're wrong.

Mark Tier

#11. I'm the crazy one? This country has gone insane. Read about it. FCC orders NBC newsrooms to partner with Soros funded non-profits. That's how the deal went through.

Glenn Beck

#12. While Financier George Soros was investing money in Kosovo's reconstruction, the George Soros Foundation for an Open Society had opened a branch office in Pristina establishing the Kosovo Foundation for an Open Society (KFOS) as part of the Soros' network of "non-profit foundations" in the Balkans.

Michel Chossudovsky

#13. I don't care if the Koch brothers or Soros spend their money to promote one candidate or another. I care about members of Congress spending 30%-70% of their time raising money from .05% of us. Change the way we fund elections and you change the corruption.

Lawrence Lessig

#14. I wish I had the billions of dollars that George Soros has that he has used to fund Democratic causes in the past.

Karl Rove

#15. George Soros is one of the few characters from the world of finance who deserves to be called larger-than-life.

Gary Weiss

#16. Of course, speculation will always make a crisis worse. If there is a weak point, it will expose it.

George Soros

#17. These public-private partnerships are very, very dangerous. The most rotten part of the financial system in the US consisted of the government sponsored entities. They really kicked off this crisis. The state should set the rules and enforce them but not become involved as a market player.

George Soros

#18. Political debate is more interested in manipulating the truth, than finding the truth.

George Soros

#19. The sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions.

George Soros

#20. 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

#21. 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

#22. The eurozone status quo is neither tolerable nor stable. Mainstream economists would call it an inferior equilibrium; I call it a nightmare - one that is inflicting tremendous pain and suffering that could be easily avoided if the misconceptions and taboos that sustain it were dispelled.

George Soros

#23. I think that my foundation uses the money better than the government does. In any event, I do pay taxes.

George Soros

#24. 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

#25. We in the United States are very often - since we are a democracy and we have national interests, we've often made the mistake that a democracy has to adopt America's interests, and that is a contradiction because a democracy basically is people deciding what their interests are.

George Soros

#26. 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

#27. No individual anonymous participant can influence the prices and therefore you really can speculate in the market without paying attention to morality. That's one of the positive features of markets. That's why they function.

George Soros

#28. 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

#29. My main concern is with the world order

George Soros

#30. Increase your bets when you are confident and scale down your positions when you don't have conviction.

George Soros

#31. The bureaucratic method of building an integrated Europe has exhausted its potential.

George Soros

#32. The dark comes before dawn. The financial markets are under great pressure because of the lack of leadership during the transition period.

George Soros

#33. 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

#34. The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.

George Soros

#35. Discount the obvious, bet on the unexpected

George Soros

#36. I am against market fundamentalism. I think this propaganda that government involvement is always bad has been very successful - but also very harmful to our society.

George Soros

#37. 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

#38. 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

#39. Find the trend whose premise is false, and bet against it.

George Soros

#40. An open society calls itself open to improvement. It is based on the recognition that people have divergent views and interests, and that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth.

George Soros

#41. At times of recession, running a budget deficit is highly desirable. Once the economy begins to recover, you have to balance the budget. But it will also need additional revenues. Should the government not receive them, we will all get punished with higher interest rates.

George Soros

#42. There is always a divergence between our perception and what actually exists.

George Soros

#43. I am not well qualified to criticize the theory of rational expectations and the efficient market hypothesis because as a market participant I considered them so unrealistic that I never bothered to study them.

George Soros

#44. 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

#45. The hardest thing to judge is what level of risk is safe.

George Soros

#46. I have made it a principle to give advice that does not serve my personal interest but rather the common interests.

George Soros

#47. 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

#48. It is sort of a disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out,

George Soros

#49. 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

#50. 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

#51. 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

#52. 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

#53. If every rich person gave 50 percent of their wealth to charity, I would not say they should pay more taxes.

George Soros

#54. The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposite position. I assume that markets are always wrong.

George Soros

#55. Germans tend to forget now that the euro was largely a Franco-German creation. No country has benefited more from the euro than Germany, both politically and economically. Therefore what has happened as a result of the introduction of the euro is largely Germany's its responsibility.

George Soros

#56. The ultimate asset bubble is gold.

George Soros

#57. The collapse of the global marketplace would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I find it easier to imagine than the continuation of the present regime.

George Soros

#58. There is no doubt that the countries that now have a very large debt have not introduced the kind of structural reforms that Germany did and are therefore at a disadvantage. But the problem is that this disadvantage is becoming even more pronounced through the punitive policies in place.

George Soros

#59. 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

#60. Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.

George Soros

#61. The laissez-faire argument relies on the same tacit appeal to perfection as does communism.

George Soros

#62. Misconceptions play a prominent role in my view of the world.

George Soros

#63. 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

#64. 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

#65. 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

#66. It is credit that matters, not money (in other words, monetarism is a false ideology).

George Soros

#67. 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

#68. Changeless society is characterized by the absense of alternatives.

George Soros

#69. My foundations support people in the country who care about an open society. It's their work that I'm supporting. So it's not me doing it. But I can empower them. I can support them, and I can help them.

George Soros

#70. The assumption of perfect knowledge is very far from reality ... a lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional.

George Soros

#71. 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

#72. We must not forget; but we must forgive. Suffering often such compassion from the Jewish community. It was Jewish groups in the US who were in the forefront in opposing the ethnic cleansing of Muslim in Bosnia.

George Soros

#73. One of the myths propagated by the enemies of Israel is that there is an all-powerful Zionist conspiracy. That is a false accusation. Nevertheless, that AIPAC has been so successful in suppressing criticism has lent some credence to such false beliefs.

George Soros

#74. 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

#75. I would prefer not to be involved in party politics.

George Soros

#76. Democracy, by its very nature, can't be imposed on people. Democracy has to be the people deciding for themselves.

George Soros

#77. Now that I have called you on your false accusation, you are using additional smear tactics.

George Soros

#78. American supremacy is the greatest threat to the world today.

George Soros

#79. A lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional. A lot of people in the financial system did a lot of damage without intending to.

George Soros

#80. 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

#81. 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

#82. 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

#83. As I like to put it, we have hit pay dirt. The effort to cure the resource curse is a good example of what private foundations working with NGOs can accomplish.

George Soros

#84. I think it is natural that every country has to take care of its interests, but there are some interests that are common to all countries. There are some human interests, or we need also international cooperation. We've sometimes confused it with dictation.

George Soros

#85. I don't use my money to gain political influence for my private interests, which is what many rich people do, and what, in a sense, market fundamentalism does, because it is in the interests of people who have a lot of money to have as little taxes as possible.

George Soros

#86. 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

#87. This crisis has the potential to be a lot worse than Lehman Brothers.

George Soros

#88. Economic history is a never-ending series of episodes based on falsehoods and lies, not truths. It represents the path to big money. The object is to recognize the trend whose premise is false, ride that trend and step off before it is discredited.

George Soros

#89. If investing is entertaining, if you're having fun, you're probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.

George Soros

#90. 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

#91. The key problem is the debt restructuring in the euro zone. As long as the debt burden is not reduced, there is no chance of the weaker EU countries regaining competitiveness.

George Soros

#92. Scientific method seeks to understand things as they are, while alchemy seeks to bring about a desired state of affairs. To put it another way, the primary objective of science is truth, - that of alchemy, operational success.

George Soros

#93. Revolutions usually start with enthusiasm and end in tears.

George Soros

#94. Esperanto was a very useful language, because wherever you went, you found someone to speak with.

George Soros

#95. 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

#96. 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

#97. Outperforming the market with low volatility on a consistent basis is an impossibility. I outperformed the market for 30-odd years, but not with low volatility.

George Soros

#98. In politics, manipulating reality can take presidence over finding reality.

George Soros

#99. Unfortunately, the more complex the system, the greater the room for error.

George Soros

#100. 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