George Soros Quotes

Markets can influence the events that they anticipate.

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 was absurd.

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, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They really kicked off this crisis. The state should set the rules and enforce them - but not become involved as a market player.

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

Once a trend is established it tends to persist and to run it’s full course.

I'm only rich because I know when I'm wrong...I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes.

Germany will always do the minimum to preserve the euro. Doing the minimum, though, will perpetuate the situation where the debtor countries in Europe have to pay tremendous premiums to refinance their debt. The result will be a Europe in which Germany is seen as an imperial power that will not be loved and admired by the rest of Europe - but hated and resisted, because it will perceived as an oppressive power.

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

Making an investment decision is like formulating a scientific hypothesis and submitting it to a practical test.

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.

We [at Soros Fund Management] use options and more exotic derivatives sparingly. We try to catch new trends early and in later stages we try to catch trend reversals. Therefore, we tend to stabilize rather than destabilize the market. We are not doing this as a public service. It is our style of making money.

Most of the poverty and misery in the world is due to bad government, lack of democracy, weak states, internal strife, and so on.

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.

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.

Market prices are always wrong.

My sense of insecurity keeps me alert, always ready to correct my errors.

When you sell options, you get paid for assuming risk. That can be a profitable business, but it does not mix well with the risks inherent in a leveraged portfolio.

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.

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

To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride.

Advocating democracy has, by other people, often been taken as a form of imperialism, and not without some justification. So the important thing in a democracy is that it doesn't necessarily have to agree with what America's interests are, and it doesn't necessarily have to be serving American interests.

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.

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

I'm not better than the next trader, just quicker at admitting my mistakes and moving on to the next opportunity.

I passionately disagreed with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's plan to bail out the banks by using a public fund called the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to help banks take toxic assets off their balance sheets. I argued that it would be much better to put the money where the hole was and replenish the equity of the banks themselves.

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

It's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong

Stock market bubbles don't grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but reality as distorted by a misconception.

Mankind's ability to understand and control the forces of nature greatly exceeds our ability to govern ourselves

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.

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.

If the bubbles contain a misconception, as they always do, then it can't be maintained forever.

Sometimes time actually works against you if you refuse to face the relevant issues and explain to the public what is at stake.

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.

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

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.

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.

The generally accepted theory is that financial markets tend towards equilibrium, and...discount the future correctly. I operate using a different theory, according to which financial markets cannot possibly discount the future correctly because the do not merely discount the future; they help to shape it.

In 2012, the far-right Golden Dawn won 21 seats in Greece's parliamentary election, the right-wing Jobbik gained ground in my native Hungary, and the National Front's Marine Le Pen received strong backing in France's presidential election. Growing support for similar forces across Europe points to an inescapable conclusion: the continent's prolonged financial crisis is creating a crisis of values that is now threatening the European Union itself.

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.

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.

It is better to have a cat and mouse game where the cat has the upper hand than a cat and mouse game where the mice are ruling. Because the latter means that the market participants are given free range. That was actually the big misconception of our national hero Ronald Reagan, who always talked about the magic of the market.

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

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.

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.

You could adjust the punishment to fit the infraction. Even a small fine would be enough to bring an errant government to heel.

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.

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.