Quotes from 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.

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.

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.

Everybody says that I have a lot of power. But what does that power consist of?... Can I influence governments? I am beginning to be able to..." (1995)

As I like to put it, we have hit pay dirt. The effort to cure the resource curse is a good example of what private foundations working with NGOs can accomplish.

Investors operate with limited funds and intelligence, they do not need to know everything. As long as they understand something better than others, they have an edge.

Market fundamentalists recognize that the role of the state in the economy is always disruptive, inefficient, and generally has negative connotations. This leads them to believe that the market mechanism can take care of all the problems.

The assumption of perfect knowledge is very far from reality ... a lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional.

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

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

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.

I would prefer not to be involved in party politics.

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.

Economics seeks to be a science. Science is supposed to be objective and it is difficult to be scientific when the subject matter, the participant in the economic process, lacks objectivity.

The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.

A full and fair discussion is essential to democracy.

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.

Changeless society is characterized by the absense of alternatives.

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

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.

As a society we can't live without moral considerations. We do have to protect the public good. And markets are not designed to do that, so we need a political process.

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.

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.

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.