Soros, George (George Soros)

Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.
-- George Soros

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. 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 under-estimate the value of that, but they're not designed to take care of social needs.
-- George Soros

Each state is guided by its interests, not by some nebulous concept of common interest. And not many states are even democratic. So, you have a problem with the concept between international institutions and sovereignty. 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

I advocate an alliance of democratic states, with a dual purpose. One, to promote what I call open society. I talk about an alliance of open societies which would first foster the development of open societies within individual countries, because there's a lot that needs to be done in that effort. And secondly, to establish basic international law and international institutions that you need for a global, open society. So that's my sort of broad concept. Now, I have not worked out the details, because I don't think it's for me to work out the details. It's for them to work out the details.
-- George Soros

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.
-- George Soros

It's more difficult, you know, to bring about positive change than it is to make money. It's much easier to make money, because it's a much easier way to measure success
-- George Soros

Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.
-- George Soros

I argue that it's appropriate for people to pursue their profit motive in business. If you want to change that, you're going against human nature. But when it comes to setting the rules or creating the institutions, then you should have the general interest at heart, even if it conflicts with your personal interest.
-- George Soros

You know, these things interested me before I became a businessman and I kind of neglected them during twenty, twenty-five years, while I was engaged in making money, because running a hedge fund takes, you know, a hundred percent of your attention on Saturday morning, and so I didn't get involved in these issues very much. It's only when I was rather successful at it and I've made enough money for my personal needs and to look after my family that we established this interest and, by now, it is more important to me than my business.
-- George Soros

I did spearhead the introduction of the Internet in countries like Russia, the former Soviet Union, because it is a very open system of communication. I think it has great potential for self-organization and self-organization is very much at the heart of an open society. The Internet is sort of a medium of open society. However, it can also be a medium of control and so we have to be careful it doesn't destroy you.
-- George Soros

I think you will have to be very, very careful to have the regulations that will protect freedom.
-- George Soros

An open society such as ours is based on the recognition that our understanding of reality is inherently imperfect. Nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth. As the philosopher Karl Popper has shown, the ultimate truth is not attainable even in science. All theories are subject to testing and the process of replacing old theories with better ones never ends.
-- George Soros

Faith plays an important role in an open society. Exactly because our understanding is imperfect, we cannot base our decisions on knowledge alone. We need to rely on beliefs, religious or otherwise, to help us make decisions. But we must remain open to the possibility that we may be wrong so that we can correct our mistakes. Otherwise, we are bound to be wrong.
-- George Soros

A FULL AND FAIR DISCUSSION IS ESSENTIAL TO A DEMOCRACY
-- George Soros

Markets reduce everything, including human beings and nature, to commodities.
-- George Soros

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

The goal of competitors is to prevail, not to preserve competition in the markets.
-- George Soros

The worse a situation becomes, the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger the upside.
-- George Soros

The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios... The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market.
-- George Soros

Stock market bubbles don't grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but reality as distorted by a misconception.
-- George Soros

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

It's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.
-- George Soros