Explore Quotes by George Soros

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.

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.

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.

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.

Short term volatility is greatest at turning points and diminishes as a trend becomes established

There is no point in being confident and having a small position.

My approach works not by making valid predictions but by allowing me to correct false ones.

An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others.

Markets can influence the events that they anticipate.

If truth be known, I carried some rather potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood which I felt I had to control, otherwise I might end up in the loony bin. But when I made my way in the world I wanted to indulge myself in my fantasies to the extent that I could afford.

The reality is that financial markets are self-destabilizing; occasionally they tend toward disequilibrium, not equilibrium.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Law has become a business. Health care has become a business. Unfortunately, politics has also become a business. That really undermines society.

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 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.

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

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.