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George Soros

91 quotes

“A full and fair discussion is essential to democracy.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are losing the values that have made America great. The destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center was such a horrendous event that it required a strong response. But the President committed a fundamental error in thinking: the fact that the terrorists are manifestly evil does not make whatever counter-actions we take automatically good. What we do to combat terrorism may also be wrong. Recognizing that we may be wrong is the foundation of an open society.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“President Bush inadvertently played right into the hands of bin Laden. The invasion of Afghanistan was justified: that was where bin Laden lived and al Qaeda had its training camps. The invasion of Iraq was not similarly justified. It was President Bush's unintended gift to bin Laden.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War and occupation create innocent victims. We count the body bags of American soldiers; there have been more than 1000 in Iraq. The rest of the world also looks at the Iraqis who get killed daily. There have been 15 times more. Some were trying to kill our soldiers; far too many were totally innocent, including many women and children. Every innocent death helps the terrorists' cause by stirring anger against America and bringing them potential recruits.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have been crisscrossing the country for the last three weeks arguing against the reelection of President Bush. I feel strongly that he has led us in the wrong direction. The invasion of Iraq was a colossal blunder and only by rejecting the President at the polls can we hope to escape from the quagmire in which we find ourselves.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The nation is deeply divided and the two camps seem to be talking past each other. John Kerry won all three debates but President Bush invokes his faith and that inspires his followers. In the end, it boils down to a philosophical difference over how to deal with an often confusing and threatening reality.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An open society such as ours is based on the recognition that our understanding of reality is inherently imperfect. Nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth. As the philosopher Karl Popper has shown, the ultimate truth is not attainable even in science. All theories are subject to testing and the process of replacing old theories with better ones never ends.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Faith plays an important role in an open society. Exactly because our understanding is imperfect, we cannot base our decisions on knowledge alone. We need to rely on beliefs, religious or otherwise, to help us make decisions. But we must remain open to the possibility that we may be wrong so that we can correct our mistakes. Otherwise, we are bound to be wrong.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“President Bush has shown that he is incapable of recognizing his mistakes. He insists on making reality conform to his beliefs even at the cost of deceiving himself and deliberately deceiving the public. There is something appealing in the strength of his faith, especially in our troubled time. But the cost is too high. By putting our faith in a President who cannot admit his mistakes we commit ourselves to the wrong policies.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we reelect President Bush we are endorsing his policies and we shall have to live with the consequences. We are facing a vicious circle of escalating violence with no end in sight. If we reject him at the polls we shall have a better chance to regain the respect and support of the world and break the vicious circle. Our future depends on it.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have devoted half my fortune and most of my energies in the last 15 years to promoting the values of democracy and open society all over the world, especially in the former Soviet Empire. After 9/11 I came to feel that those principles need to be defended at home.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The invasion of Afghanistan was justified: that was where Osama bin Laden lived and al Qaeda had its training camps. The invasion of Iraq was not similarly justified.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The war on terror is an abstraction. But the terrorists are real people and they are not all alike. Most of the people attacking our soldiers in Iraq originally had nothing to do with al Qaeda. They have been generated by the policies of the Bush administration. We have been spared a terrorist attack at home but it is quite a stretch to attribute that to the invasion of Iraq. The insurrection in Iraq, however, is a somber reality and it doesn't make us safer at home. Our security, far from improving as President Bush claims, is deteriorating.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bush's war in Iraq has done untold damage to the United States. It has impaired our military power and undermined the morale of our armed forces. Our troops were trained to project overwhelming power. They were not trained for occupation duties.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Before the invasion of Iraq, we could project overwhelming power in any part of the world. We cannot do so any more because we are bogged down in Iraq. Iran and North Korea are moving ahead with their nuclear programs at full speed and our hand in dealing with them has been greatly weakened.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The war on terror as defined by President Bush is a one-dimensional presentation of reality. We cannot fight terrorism by military means alone. We can use military force only when we have a known target; but it is the habit of terrorists to keep their whereabouts hidden. To track them down we need the support of the populations amongst whom they hide. Offense is not necessarily the best defense if it offends those whose allegiance we need.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“George W. Bush revels in being a war president. His campaign is shamelessly exploiting the fears generated by 9/11. Vice President Cheney is conjuring mushroom clouds into our cities. But fear is a bad counselor; we must resist it wherever it comes from. President Roosevelt had the right idea when he said, "We have nothing to fear but Fear itself.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An open society is always in danger. It must constantly reaffirm its principles in order to survive. We are being sorely tested, first by 9/11 and then by President Bush's response. To pass the test we must face reality instead of finding solace in false certainties. This election transcends party loyalties. Our future as an open society depends on resisting the Siren's song.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Bush administration is once again in the process of committing a major policy blunder in the Middle East ... Hamas won the elections in an upset victory. Then came the blunder I am talking about. Israel, with the strong backing of the United States, refused to recognize the democratically elected Hamas government.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Palestine problem does not have a purely military solution. Military superiority is necessary for Israel's national security, but it is not sufficient. The solution has to be political, as President Clinton recognized.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. ... Following his criticism of repressive Israeli policy on the West Bank, former president Jimmy Carter has suffered the loss of some of the financial backers of his center.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Esperanto was a very useful language, because wherever you went, you found someone to speak with.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: How Do You Say ‘Billionaire’ in Esperanto?" in The New York Times (December 16, 2010)
“So the euro is here to stay, and the arrangements that evolved in response to the crisis have become established as the new order governing the eurozone. This confirms my worst fears. It’s the nightmare I’ve been talking about. I’m hopeful that the Russian invasion of Crimea may serve as a wake-up call. Germany is the only country in a position to change the prevailing order.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 24 April 2014 nybooks.com
“Companies earn their profits by exploiting their environment. Mining and oil companies exploit the physical environment; social media companies exploit the social environment. This is particularly nefarious because social media companies influence how people think and behave without them even being aware of it.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 25 January 2018 remarks delivered at the World Economic Forum
“‘The EU needs to transform itself into an association that countries like Britain would want to join, in order to strengthen the political case,’ Mr Soros said he was convinced it was the ideal time for the EU to reform itself and prepare the ground for the UK staying inside the bloc.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On BREXIT, "Brexit: Second referendum campaign to be launched, George Soros announces", The Independent (2018)
“China isn’t the only authoritarian regime in the world, but it’s undoubtedly the wealthiest, strongest and most developed in machine learning and artificial intelligence. This makes Xi Jinping the most dangerous opponent of those who believe in the concept of open society.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at World Economic Forum (24 January 2019)
“Nationalism, far from being reversed, made further headway. The biggest and most frightening setback came in India, where a democratically elected Narendra Modi is creating a Hindu nationalist state, imposing punitive measures on Kashmir – a semi-autonomous Muslim region, and threatening to deprive millions of Muslims of their citizenship.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: George Soros, At the World Economic Forum at Davos 2020, Soros, George. 2020. Frightening setback in India, democratically elected Modi creating Hindu state: George Soros. 24 January. ThePrint.. quoted from Malhotra R. …
“I consider Xi Jinping the most dangerous enemy of open societies in the world.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tweet 16 August 2021
“The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposition position. I assume that markets are always wrong. Even if my assumption is occasionally wrong, I use it as a working hypothesis. It does not follow that one should always go against the prevailing trend. On the contrary, most of the time the trend prevails; only occasionally are the errors corrected. It is only on those occasions that one should go against the trend. This line of reasoning leads me to look for the flaw in every investment thesis. ... I am ahead of the curve. I watch out for telltale signs that a trend may be exhausted. Then I disengage from the herd and look for a different investment thesis. Or, if I think the trend has been carried to excess, I may probe going against it. Most of the time we are punished if we go against the trend. Only at an inflection point are we rewarded.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Steve Kroft: In the last two years, you have been blamed for the financial collapse of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and Russia. George Soros: All of the above. Steve Kroft: All of the above. Are you that powerful? George Soros: No. I think there's a great misunderstanding. Steve Kroft: The prime minister of Malaysia said that the region spent 40 years trying to build up its economy, and along comes a moron like Soros with a lot of money, and it's all over. He called you a criminal. George Soros: It's easier for him to blame an outside force than to admit that they were mismanaging their economy and their currency. The French finance minister talked about hanging speculators from lamp posts.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“George Soros: Actually, president Mandela asked me, "How could South Africa protect itself against speculators like you?" And I told him. I wrote him a memo, trying to give him the best advice I could on how to reduce the exposure of South Africa to speculative attack. Steve Kroft: That's the old "stop me before I kill again" approach, right? You're telling him, "This is what you can do to stop me." George Soros: Whether I or somebody else does whatever is happening in the markets really doesn't make any difference to the outcome. I don't feel guilty, because I'm engaged in an amoral activity which is not meant to have anything to do with guilt.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Steve Kroft: You're a Hungarian Jew who escaped the Holocaust by posing as a Christian. And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps. George Soros: Right. I was 14 years old. And I would say that that's when my character was made. Steve Kroft: In what way? George Soros: That one should think ahead. One should understand and anticipate events and when one is threatened. It was a tremendous threat of evil. I mean, it was a very personal experience of evil. Steve Kroft: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson. Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews. I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult? George Soros: Not at all. Maybe as a child you don't see the connection, but it created no problem at all. Steve Kroft: No feeling of guilt? For example, "I'm Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there." None of that? George Soros: Well, of course I could be on the other side, or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn't be there, because that was—well, actually, in a funny way, it's just like in markets: that if I weren't there—of course, I wasn't doing it—somebody else would be taking it away anyhow. Whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator. The property was being taken away. So I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The supremacist ideology of the Bush Administration stands in opposition to the principles of an open society, which recognize that people have different views and that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth. The supremacist ideology postulates that just because we are stronger than others, we know better and have right on our side. The very first sentence of the September 2002 National Security Strategy (the President's annual laying out to Congress of the country's security objectives) reads, "The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise." The assumptions behind this statement are false on two counts. First, there is no single sustainable model for national success. Second, the American model, which has indeed been successful, is not available to others, because our success depends greatly on our dominant position at the center of the global capitalist system, and we are not willing to yield it.”
George Soros (born 1930) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Bubble of American Supremacy" in The Atlantic Monthly (December 2003), p. 63 - 66
“If we re-elect Bush, we are endorsing the Bush doctrine. And then we are off to a vicious circle of escalating violence in the world. And I think, you know, terrorism, counter-terrorism, it's a very scary spectacle to me. If we reject him, then we are effectively rejecting the Bush doctrine. Because he was elected on a platform of a more humble foreign policy. Then we can go back to a more humble foreign policy. And treat this episode as an aberration. We have to pay a heavy price. You know, 100 billion dollars a year in Iraq. We can't get out of that. We mustn't get out of it. But still, we can then regain the confidence of the world, and our rightful place as leaders of the world, working to make the world a better place.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most of the poverty and misery in the world is due to bad government, lack of democracy, weak states, internal strife, and so on. We do need to intervene, to improve political and economic conditions inside countries that have bad governments, where people are suffering. One way of doing this, without violating sovereignty, is through constructive actions — reinforcements and incentives for countries that are moving in the right direction, toward an open society, a market economy, et cetera. That is what I'm advocating. I'm advocating preventive action of a constructive nature. And I would use military force only as the very last resort, when nothing else works.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The war in Iraq was misconceived from start to finish — if it has a finish. It is a war of choice, not of necessity, as President Bush claims. It goes without saying that Saddam was a tyrant, and it is good to be rid of him. But in invading Iraq as we did, without a second UN resolution, we violated international law. By mistreating and even torturing prisoners, we violated the Geneva conventions. President Bush has boasted that we do not need a permission slip from the international community, but our disregard for international law has endangered our security, particularly the security of our troops.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States. This is a harsh — indeed, for me, painful — thing to say, but unfortunately I am convinced it is true. The United States continues to set the agenda for the world in spite of its loss of influence since 9/11, and the Bush administration is setting the wrong agenda . The Bush agenda is nationalistic: it emphasizes the use of force and ignores global problems whose solution requires international cooperation. The rest of the world dances to the tune the United States is playing, and if that continues too long we are in danger of destroying our civilization. Changing the attitude and policies of the United States remains my top priority.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. I go into some detail as to what that entails. Mankind’s power over nature has increased cumulatively while its ability to govern itself has not kept pace. There is no other country that can take the place of the United States in the foreseeable future. If the United States fails to provide the right kind of leadership our civilization may destroy itself. That is the unpleasant reality that confronts us.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. Demolishing the wall of silence that has protected AIPAC would help lay them to rest. A debate within the Jewish community, instead of fomenting anti-Semitism, would only help diminish it. Anticipating attacks, I should like to emphasize that I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel's policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism. At the same time, I do believe that attitudes toward Israel are influenced by Israel's policies, and attitudes toward the Jewish community are influenced by the pro-Israel lobby's success in suppressing divergent views.”
George Soros (born 1930) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source