Top 160 George Soros Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “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.”

— George Soros

52. “Increase your bets when you are confident and scale down your positions when you don’t have conviction.”

— George Soros

53. “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

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

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

56. “I am for maximum supervision and minimum regulation.”

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

58. “Market prices are always wrong in the sense that they present a biased view of the future.”

— George Soros

59. “My conceptual framework, which basically emphasizes the importance of misconceptions, makes me extremely critical of my own decisions. I know that I am bound to be wrong, and therefore am more likely to correct my own mistakes.”

— George Soros

60. “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.”

— George Soros

61. “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.”

— George Soros

62. “Studying economics is not a good preparation for dealing with it.”

— George Soros

63. “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.”

— George Soros

64. “Hedge funds are a very efficient way of managing money. But there are clearly some risks. Hedge funds use credit and credit is a source of instability. Transactions involving credit should be regulated.”

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

66. “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.”

— George Soros

67. “Revolutions usually start with enthusiasm and end in tears.”

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

69. “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.”

— George Soros

70. “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.”

— George Soros

71. “Political debate is more interested in manipulating the truth, than finding the truth.”

— George Soros

72. “The world order needs a major overhaul.”

— George Soros

73. “Democracy, by its very nature, can’t be imposed on people. Democracy has to be the people deciding for themselves.”

— George Soros

74. “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.”

— George Soros

75. “The eurozone status quo is neither tolerable nor stable. Mainstream economists would call it an inferior equilibrium; I call it a nightmare – one that is inflicting tremendous pain and suffering that could be easily avoided if the misconceptions and taboos that sustain it were dispelled.”

— George Soros

76. “American supremacy is the greatest threat to the world today.”

— George Soros

77. “China could easily emerge as the great winner if the Chinese leaders handle the situation well. On the other hand, they could also turn out to be the biggest losers if they handle it poorly. If the management turns out be wrong, this could lead to a political crisis in China.”

— George Soros

78. “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.”

— George Soros

79. “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

80. “In politics, manipulating reality can take presidence over finding reality.”

— George Soros

81. “The financial markets play an active role in determining what’s going to happen, how the economy is going to function.”

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

84. “I think that my foundation uses the money better than the government does. In any event, I do pay taxes.”

— George Soros

85. “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.”

— George Soros

86. “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. They really kicked off this crisis. The state should set the rules and enforce them but not become involved as a market player.”

— George Soros

87. “My main concern is with the world order.”

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

89. “The key problem is the debt restructuring in the euro zone. As long as the debt burden is not reduced, there is no chance of the weaker EU countries regaining competitiveness.”

— George Soros

90. “Mankind’s ability to understand and control the forces of nature greatly exceeds our ability to govern ourselves.”

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

93. “A full and fair discussion is essential to democracy.”

— George Soros

94. “What works for Germany can’t work for the rest of Europe: No country can run a chronic surplus without others running deficits.”

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

96. “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.”

— George Soros

97. “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.”

— George Soros

98. “Merkel has realized that the euro is not working, but she cannot change the narrative she has created because that narrative has caught the imagination of the German public, and the German public has accepted it.”

— George Soros

99. “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

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

— George Soros