George Soros: Most Influential Quotes

George Soros's wisdom has guided investors, philanthropists and politicians. Here are some of his more memorable sayings.

George Soros on Investing

"If investing is entertaining, if you're having fun, you're probably not making any money. Good investing is boring." Soros on enjoyable investing.

"The financial markets generally are unpredictable.... The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market." Soros on how his reflexivity principle affects the way he looks at markets.

"The worse a situation becomes, the less it takes to turn it around, and the bigger the upside." Soros on the attractiveness of investing in distressed situations.

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

"Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected." Soros on bucking the herd mentality of the markets.

"The reality is that financial markets are self-destabilizing; occasionally they tend toward disequilibrium, not equilibrium." Soros on why no one philosophy, outlook or analysis on the markets suffices for very long.

George Soros on Philanthropy

"I was a human being before I became a businessman." Soros on his generous philanthropic activities.

"Most of the poverty and misery in the world is due to bad government, lack of democracy, weak states, internal strife, and so on." Soros on the reason behind much of the suffering in the world.

George Soros on Politics and Philosophy

"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." Soros on the ways that the most sophisticated financial system the world had ever seen was, in fact, a blind force.

"Law has become a business. Health care has become a business. Unfortunately, politics has also become a business. That really undermines society." Soros on how market forces can make basic necessities of a civilization hollow shells of what they are supposed to be.

"Whenever there is a conflict between universal principles and self-interest, self-interest is likely to prevail." Soros on a sad truth of human nature that drives decision-making in the political and commercial arenas.

"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." Soros on the necessary function of government in the creation and protection of essential principles.

"I chose America as my home because I value freedom and democracy, civil liberties and an open society." Soros on why he built his life in the United States.

"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." Soros on the startling failure of the global markets to deliver on the promise of freedom and democracy that they seemed to hold during the Cold War.

"Misconceptions play a prominent role in my view of the world." Soros on how he approached the markets and the actors in them.

"Unrestrained competition can drive people into actions that they would otherwise regret." Soros on how unregulated commercial activity can erode moral, ethical and perhaps even spiritual boundaries.

"Globalization has rendered the world increasingly interdependent, but international politics is still based on the sovereignty of states." Soros on how the world stage fails to properly reflect, and may even create a regressive trend within, global politics.