Top 209 Quotes & Sayings by George Soros - Page 3

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.

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.

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

If we care about universal principles such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law, we cannot leave them to the care of market forces; we must establish some other institutions to safeguard them.

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.

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

A global economy is characterized not only by the free movement of goods and services but, more important, by the free movement of ideas and of capital.

I would be lying, however, if I claimed that I could always formulate worthwhile hypotheses on the basis of my theoretical framework. Sometimes there were no reflexive processes to be found; sometimes I failed to find them; and, what was the most painful of all, sometimes I got them wrong. One way or another, I often invested without a worthwhile hypothesis and my activities were not very different from a random walk.

Changeless society is characterized by the absense of alternatives.

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.

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.

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.

We are trying to make the world a better place, but that is not necessarily what we accomplish. Many of the problems which preoccupy us are basically insoluble.

I admire Chancellor Merkel for her leadership qualities, but she is leading Europe in the wrong direction.

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.

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 underestimate the value of that. But they're not designed to take care of social needs.

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.

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.

Markets are imperfect. So you do need regulation, knowing that the regulators are also human.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

It is much easier to put existing resources to better use, than to develop resources where they do not exist.

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

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.

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.

The global crisis is caused by pathologies inherent in the global financial system itself.

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

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.

I call government that works the best for people open society, which is basically just another more general term for a democracy that is - you call it maybe a liberal democracy. It's not only majority rule but also respect for minorities and minority opinions and the rule of law. So it's really a sort of institutional democracy.

The concept of a general equilibrium has no relevance to the real world (in other words, classical economics is an exercise in futility).

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.

The lower interest rates fueled housing and consumption booms in countries such as Spain and Ireland. At the same time, Germany, struggling with the burdens of reunification, tightened its belt and became more competitive. All this led to a wide divergence in economic performance. Europe became divided into creditor and debtor countries.

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.

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

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.

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.

Globalization has rendered the world increasingly interdependent, but international politics is still based on the sovereignty of states.

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.

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

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.

However, you have to recognize that regulations will never be completely successful and they will always be full of holes. You must constantly be ready to fill new holes. Actually regulation should be kept to a minimum, but there has to be some cooperation between market participants and authorities - as was the case in the early postwar years. The Bank of England was a very successful regulator by cooperating with market participants. This cooperative spirit was broken by the market fundamentalists.

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.

The more comprehensive and convincing a debt reduction program is, the less likely it is to fail. And remember, just as Germany is grateful to America for the Marshall Plan, Italy would be grateful to Germany for helping it lower its refinancing costs.

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.

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

There is no question that a breakup of the euro would be very damaging, very costly, both financially and politically. And the biggest loss would be incurred by Germany. Germans have to bear in mind that, effectively, they have suffered practically no losses so far. Transfers have all been in the form of loans, and it is only when the loans are not repaid that real losses will be incurred.

My original intention was to spend the money in my lifetime.

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

I commissioned two political experts to advise me about what I could do to oppose the re-election of President Bush.

This is the joint responsibility of everyone who was involved in the introduction of the euro without understanding the consequences. When the euro was introduced, the regulators allowed banks to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds without setting aside any equity capital. And the European Central Bank discounted all government bonds on equal terms. So commercial banks found it advantageous to accumulate the bonds of the weaker countries to earn a few extra basis points.

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.

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

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.

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.

You need a government that believes in government. It also believes in markets and wants to give markets the best, the greatest opportunity, but is trying to govern well.

The securitisation of mortgages added a new dimension of systemic risk. Financial engineers claimed they were reducing risks through geographic diversification: in fact they were increasing them by creating an agency problem. The agents were more interested in maximising fee income than in protecting the interests of bondholders. That is the verity that was ignored by regulators and market participants alike.