Top 160 George Soros Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “In the case of a meltdown, the regulatory authorities may find themselves obliged to step in to preserve the integrity of the system. It is in that light that the authorities have both a right and an obligation to supervise and regulate derivative instruments.”

— George Soros

102. “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 is absurd.”

— George Soros

103. “The only thing that could hurt me is if my success encouraged me to return to my childhood fantasies of omnipotence – but that is not likely to happen as long as I remain engaged in the financial markets, because they constantly remind me of my limitations.”

— George Soros

104. “The people currently in charge have forgotten the first principle of an open society, namely that we may be wrong and that there has to be free discussion. That it’s possible to be opposed to the policies without being unpatriotic.”

— George Soros

105. “To my mind, there is a solution which has to do with democracy, because democratic governments are subject to the will of the people. So, if the people will it, you can actually create international institutions through the democratic states.”

— George Soros

106. “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.”

— George Soros

107. “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

108. “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.”

— George Soros

109. “I think there’s a lot of merit in an international economy and global markets, but they’re not sufficient because markets don’t look after social needs.”

— George Soros

110. “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.”

— George Soros

111. “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.”

— George Soros

112. “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.”

— George Soros

113. “I chose America as my home because I value freedom and democracy, civil liberties and an open society.”

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

115. “Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.”

— George Soros

116. “America needs to follow the policies it has introduced in Germany. We have to go through a certain de-Nazification process.”

— George Soros

117. “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.”

— George Soros

118. “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.”

— George Soros

119. “When money is free, the rational lender will keep on lending until there is no one else to lend to.”

— George Soros

120. “I called gold the ultimate bubble, which means it may go higher. But it’s certainly not safe and it’s not going to last forever.”

— George Soros

121. “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.”

— George Soros

122. “Proposition 19 already is a winner no matter what happens on election day. The mere fact of its being on the ballot has elevated and legitimized public discourse about marijuana and marijuana policy in ways I could not have imagined a year ago.”

— George Soros

123. “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.”

— George Soros

124. “Who most benefits from keeping marijuana illegal? The greatest beneficiaries are the major criminal organizations in Mexico and elsewhere that earn billions of dollars annually from this illicit trade – and who would rapidly lose their competitive advantage if marijuana were a legal commodity.”

— George Soros

125. “The criminalization of marijuana did not prevent marijuana from becoming the most widely used illegal substance in the United States and many other countries. But it did result in extensive costs and negative consequences.”

— George Soros

126. “Just as the process of repealing national alcohol prohibition began with individual states repealing their own prohibition laws, so individual states must now take the initiative with respect to repealing marijuana prohibition laws.”

— George Soros

127. “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.”

— George Soros

128. “If the terrorists have the sympathy of people, it’s much harder to find them. So we need people on our side, and that leads us to be responsible leaders of the world, show some concern with the problems.”

— George Soros

129. “Misconceptions play a prominent role in my view of the world.”

— George Soros

130. “The ultimate asset bubble is gold.”

— George Soros

131. “The world is looking to us for leadership. We have provided it in the past; the main reason why anti-American feelings are so strong in the world today is that we are not providing it in the present.”

— George Soros

132. “The main difference between me and other people who have amassed this kind of money is that I am primarily interested in ideas, and I don’t have much personal use for money.”

— George Soros

133. “When it comes to social consequences, they’ve got all different people acting in different ways, very difficult to even have a proper criterion of success. So, it’s a difficult task.”

— George Soros

134. “President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values.”

— George Soros

135. “If the choice is between cooking alive and wasting money unnecessarily I would rather waste some money, because long before we cook we are going to kill each other if we don’t deal with climate change.”

— George Soros

136. “As I discovered, there is a great deal of similarity between a boom-bust process in the financial markets and the rise and fall of the Soviet system.”

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

138. “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

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

— George Soros

140. “The collapse of the global marketplace would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I find it easier to imagine than the continuation of the present regime.”

— George Soros

141. “Regulating and taxing marijuana would simultaneously save taxpayers billions of dollars in enforcement and incarceration costs, while providing many billions of dollars in revenue annually.”

— George Soros

142. “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.”

— George Soros

143. “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.”

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

145. “At times of recession, running a budget deficit is highly desirable. Once the economy begins to recover, you have to balance the budget. But it will also need additional revenues. Should the government not receive them, we will all get punished with higher interest rates.”

— George Soros

146. “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.”

— George Soros

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

— George Soros

148. “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

149. “If every rich person gave 50 percent of their wealth to charity, I would not say they should pay more taxes.”

— George Soros

150. “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.”

— George Soros