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George Soros
91 quotes
“The truth is, successful investing is a kind of alchemy.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I made two major discoveries in the course of writing: one is a reflexive connection between credit and collateral; the other is a reflexive relationship between regulators and the economies they regulate”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The act of lending can change the value of the collateral”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Economic theory is devoted to the study of equilibrium positions. The concept of equilibrium is very useful. It allows us to focus on the final outcome rather than the process that leads up to it. But the concept is also very deceptive. It has the aura of something empirical: since the adjustment process is supposed to lead to an equilibrium, an equilibrium position seems somehow implicit in our observations. That is not true. Equilibrium itself has rarely been observed in real life — market prices have a notorious habit of fluctuating.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The United States would not be called upon to act as the policeman of the world. When it acts, it would act in conjunction with others. Incidentally, the combination of manpower from Eastern Europe with the technical capabilities of NATO would greatly enhance the military potential of the partnership because it would reduce the risk of body bags for NATO countries, which is the main constraint on their willingness to act. This is a viable alternative to the looming world disorder.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Toward a New World Order: The Future of NATO (1 November 1993)
“The bureaucratic method of building an integrated Europe has exhausted its potential.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Can Europe Work? A Plan to Rescue the Union" in Foreign Affairs (September/October 1996)
“Go for the jugular.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: George Soros to Stan Druckenmiller on betting $15 billion instead of $1.5 billion against the British pound (September 15, 1992)
“My peculiarity is that I don't have a particular style of investing or, more exactly, I try to change my style to fit the conditions.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the abstract level, I have turned the belief in my own fallibility into the cornerstone of an elaborate philosophy. On a personal level, I am a very critical person who looks for defects in myself as well as in others. But, being so critical, I am also quite forgiving. I couldn't recognize my mistakes if I couldn't forgive myself. To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride. 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 (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I rely a great deal on animal instincts. When I was actively running the fund, I suffered from backache. I used the onset of acute pain as a signal that there was something wrong in my portfolio. The backache didn’t tell me what was wrong — you know, lower back for short positions, left shoulder for currencies — but it did prompt me to look for something amiss when I might not have done so otherwise.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We live in a global economy, but the political organization of our global society is woefully inadequate. We are bereft of the capacity to preserve peace and to counteract the excesses of the financial markets. Without these controls, the global economy, is liable to break down”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The development of a global economy has not been matched by the development of a global society. The basic unit for political and social life remains the nation-state. International law and international institutions, insofar as they exist, are not strong enough to prevent war or the large-scale abuse of human rights in individual countries. Ecological threats are not adequately dealt with. Global financial markets are largely beyond the control of national or international authorities.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Financial markets are supposed to swing like a pendulum: They may fluctuate wildly in response to exogenous shocks, but eventually they are supposed to come to rest at an equilibrium point and that point is supposed to be the same irrespective of the interim fluctuations. Instead, as I told Congress, financial markets behaved more like a wrecking ball, swinging from country to country and knocking over the weaker ones. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the international financial system itself constituted the main ingredient in the meltdown process.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis
“The global crisis is caused by pathologies inherent in the global financial system itself.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is time to recognize that financial markets are inherently unstable. Imposing market discipline means imposing instability, and how much instability can society take? ... To put it bluntly, the choice confronting us is whether we will regulate global financial markets internationally or leave it to each individual state to protect its interests as best it can. The latter course will surely lead to the breakdown of the gigantic circulatory system, which goes under the name of global capitalism.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A global society does not mean a global state. To abolish the existence of states is neither feasible nor desirable; but insofar as there are collective interests that transcend state boundaries, the sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“George Soros: I think that I am being blamed for everything. I am basically there to make money. I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How can we escape from the trap that the terrorists have set us? Only by recognizing that the war on terrorism cannot be won by waging war. We must, of course, protect our security; but we must also correct the grievances on which terrorism feeds. Crime requires police work, not military action.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address at the University of Pennsylvania (2002); quoted in "White House playing into Soros' hands?" by J. Michael Waller, in WorldNetDaily (1 December 2003)
“Americans, sadly, are now victims who have turned into perpetrators. Indeed, since September 2001, the war on terror has claimed more innocent victims than those terrorist attacks. This fact is unrecognized at home because the victims of the war on terror are not Americans. But the rest of the world does not draw the same distinction, and world opinion has turned against America.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: How Terrorism's Victims Became Perpetrators" (April 2004)
“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 (born 1930) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Great Money Minds" by Chris Stallman at TeenAnalyst.com (5 May 2005)
“If investing is entertaining, if you're having fun, you're probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffett & George Soros (2006) by Mark Tier, p. 217
“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. But I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn't made money: My ideas would not have gotten much play.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffett & George Soros (2006) by Mark Tier, p. 219
“I wish I could write a book that will be read for as long as our civilization lasts... I would value it much more highly than any business success if I could contribute to an understanding of the world in which we live or, better yet, if I could help to preserve the economic and political system that has allowed me to flourish as a participant.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffett & George Soros (2006) by Mark Tier, p. 219
“Not all bubbles involve the extension of credit; some are based on equity leveraging. The best examples are the conglomerate boom of the late 1960s and the Internet bubble of the late 1990s. When Alan Greenspan spoke about irrational exuberance in 1996 he misrepresented bubbles. When I see a bubble forming I rush in to buy, adding fuel to the fire. That is not irrational. And that is why we need regulators to counteract the market when a bubble is threatening to grow too big, because we cannot rely on market participants, however well informed and rational they are.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Transcript of a lecture about financial markets given by George Soros at Central European University on October 27, 2009.
“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. Markets are designed to allow individuals to look after their private needs and to pursue profit. It's really a great invention and I wouldn't under-estimate the value of that, but they're not designed to take care of social needs.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each state is guided by its interests, not by some nebulous concept of common interest. And not many states are even democratic. So, you have a problem with the concept between international institutions and sovereignty. 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 (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I advocate an alliance of democratic states, with a dual purpose. One, to promote what I call open society. I talk about an alliance of open societies which would first foster the development of open societies within individual countries, because there's a lot that needs to be done in that effort. And secondly, to establish basic international law and international institutions that you need for a global, open society. So that's my sort of broad concept. Now, I have not worked out the details, because I don't think it's for me to work out the details. It's for them to work out the details.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I used to be opposed to the idea of social entrepreneurship. I said, you know, let business be business, and philanthropy be philanthropy. Keep the two separate, don't mix it up, and this is what I did, and I did that rather successfully, but I now recognize that actually you do need to mix it up and I think there is room for social entrepreneurship.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's more difficult, you know, to bring about positive change than it is to make money. It's much easier to make money, because it's a much easier way to measure success — the bottom line. When it comes to social consequences, they've got all different people acting in different ways, very difficult to even have a proper criterion of success. So, it's a difficult task. Why not use an entrepreneurial, rather than a bureaucratic, approach. As long as people genuinely care for the people they're trying to help, they can actually do a lot of good.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I argue that it's appropriate for people to pursue their profit motive in business. If you want to change that, you're going against human nature. But when it comes to setting the rules or creating the institutions, then you should have the general interest at heart, even if it conflicts with your personal interest.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know, these things interested me before I became a businessman and I kind of neglected them during twenty, twenty-five years, while I was engaged in making money, because running a hedge fund takes, you know, a hundred percent of your attention on Saturday morning, and so I didn't get involved in these issues very much. It's only when I was rather successful at it and I've made enough money for my personal needs and to look after my family that we established this interest and, by now, it is more important to me than my business.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I did spearhead the introduction of the Internet in countries like Russia, the former Soviet Union, because it is a very open system of communication. I think it has great potential for self-organization and self-organization is very much at the heart of an open society. The Internet is sort of a medium of open society. However, it can also be a medium of control and so we have to be careful it doesn't destroy you.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think you will have to be very, very careful to have the regulations that will protect freedom.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Republican Party has been captured by a bunch of extremists … People who maintain that markets will take care of everything, that you leave it to the markets and the markets know best. Therefore, you need no government, no interference with business. Let everybody pursue his own interests. And that will serve the common interest. Now, there is a good foundation for this. But it's a half-truth.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We need to maintain law and order. We need to maintain peace in the world. We need to protect the environment. We need to have some degree of social justice, equality of opportunity. The markets are not designed to take care of those needs. That's a political process. And the market fundamentalists have managed to reduce providing those public goods.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I give away something up to $500 million a year throughout the world promoting Open Society. 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 (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know, I learned at a very early age that what kind of social system or political system prevails is very important. Not just for your well-being, but for your very survival. Because, you know, I could have been killed by the Nazis. I could have wasted my life under the Communists. So, that's what led me to this idea of an open society. And that is the idea that is motivating me.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are the dominant power. And that imposes on us a responsibility to be actually concerned with the well being of the world. Because we set the agenda. And there are a lot of problems, including terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, that can only be tackled by collective action. And we ought to be leading that collective action, instead of riding roughshod over other people's opinions and interests.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the terrorists have the sympathy of people, it's much harder to find them. So we need people on our side, and that leads us to be responsible leaders of the world, show some concern with the problems.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think he's a man of good intentions. I don't doubt it. But I think he's leading us in the wrong direction.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Stock market bubbles don't grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality — but reality as distorted by a misconception. Under normal conditions misconceptions are self-correcting, and the markets tend toward some kind of equilibrium. Occasionally, a misconception is reinforced by a trend prevailing in reality, and that is when a boom-bust process gets under way. Eventually the gap between reality and its false interpretation becomes unsustainable, and the bubble bursts.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now look at the ideology of American supremacy. It has a solid foundation in reality; namely, the United States is the dominant power in the world. The current government believes the United States ought to use this dominant position to impose its will on the world. That is the misconception. This approach is not what made America great. America did not arrive at its dominant position by imposing its will on the world.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My position is that America is great precisely because it is an open society, and an open society recognizes that nobody is the ultimate arbiter — and that we may be wrong at times, even if we are powerful. We must be open to criticism and respect divergent and different views and interests.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I find the idea that you can introduce democracy by military force a very quaint idea. Moreover, if I wanted to choose a testing ground for doing it, Iraq would be the last nation I would choose.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is the most important election of my lifetime. I have never been heavily involved in partisan politics but these are not normal times. President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests and undermining American values. That is why I am publishing this message. I have been demonized by the Bush campaign but I hope you will give me a hearing.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We face a vicious circle of escalating violence. President Bush ran on the platform of a "humble" foreign policy in 2000. If we re-elect him now, we endorse the Bush doctrine of preemptive action and the invasion of Iraq, and we will have to live with the consequences.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I grew up in Hungary, lived through fascism and the Holocaust, and then had a foretaste of communism. I learned at an early age how important it is what kind of government prevails. I chose America as my home because I value freedom and democracy, civil liberties and an open society. 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 (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source