George Soros Quotes
128 George Soros Quotes
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We must be willing to adjust our principles in light of experience. This requires a critical attitude. We must recognise that no one is in possession of the ultimate truth.
George Soros
One generation’s success in achieving material wealth gives it’s children the luxury of rejecting the work ethic.
George Soros
Currency movements tend to overshoot because of trend-following speculation, and we can observe similar trend-following behaviour in stock, commodity and real estate markets, of which Dutch Tulip Mania was the prototype.
George Soros
If a government imposes conditions that are unfavourable to capital, capital will seek to escape. Conversely, if a government keeps down wages and provides incentives for favoured businesses it can foster the accumulation of capital.
George Soros
Money is closely connected with credit but the role of credit is less well understood than the role of money. This is not surprising because credit is a reflexive phenomenon. Credit is extended against collateral or some other evidence of credit worthiness and the value of the collateral as well as the measurements of creditworthiness are reflexive in character because credit worthiness is in the eye of the creditor. The value of collateral is influenced by the availability of credit. This is particularly true for real estate. Banks are usually willing to lend against real estate and the main variable in the value of real estate is the amount the banks are willing to lend against it. Strange as it may seem, the reflexive connection is not recognised in theory and it is often forgotten in practice. Construction is notorious for it’s boom/bust character and after each bust bank managers become very cautious and resolve never to become so exposed again. But when they again awash with liquidity and desperate to put money to work, a new cycle begins.
George Soros
There may be other elements at play, but it is the contraction of credit the renders the bust so much more abrupt than the boom that preceded it. When it comes to the forced liquidation of debts, the sale of collateral depresses collateral values, unleashing a self-reinforcing process that is much more compressed in time than in the expansionary phase. This holds true whether the credit was provided by the banks or the financial markets and whether the borrowing was against securities or physical assets.
George Soros
In fact, without the intervention of the monetary authorities the international financial system would have collapsed on at least four occasions: 1982, 1987, 1994 and 1997.
George Soros
Korean chaebol debt to equity ratio was 388% in 1996; by March 98 the average had risen to 593%. The interest coverage of the thirty largest chaebol in 1996 was 1.3 times and only 0.94 times in 1997. That means that interest charges were not covered by earnings. This lead to headlong expansion without regard to profits. The only solution is to convert debt to equity.
George Soros
The rise in the value of the dollar was the immediate cause of the Asian crisis. Going further back, currency turbulence touched off the Wall Street crash of 1987.
George Soros
Unfortunately international financial markets are unstable.
George Soros
I am a creature of the markets and I enjoy the freedom and the opportunities that they offer. As a market participant, I can make my own decisions and I can learn from my mistakes. I do not need to convince others to get something done and the results are no obfuscated by the collective decision-making process.
George Soros
Strange as it may sound, participating in the financial markets gratifies my quest for the truth.
George Soros
Only those who are successful in the competition are in a position to institute changes in the terms on which the competition is carried on.
George Soros
My financial success stands in stark contrast with my ability to forecast events.
George Soros
Good investing is boring.
George Soros
Survive first and make money afterwards.
George Soros
When I was an adolescent, the Second World War gave me a lesson that I have never forgotten. I was fortunate enough to have a father who was highly skilled in the art of survival, having lived through the Russian Revolution as an escaped prisoner of war.
George Soros
[Father] because he knew how to act. He understood the situation; he realised that the normal rules did not apply. Obeying the law became a dangerous addiction; flaunting it was the way to survive … It has a formative effect on my life because I learned the art of survival from a grandmaster. That has a certain relevance to my investment career.
George Soros
To survive in the financial markets sometimes means beating a hasty retreat.
George Soros
I came to the conclusion that basically all of our views of the world are somehow flawed or distorted, and then I concentrated on the importance of this distortion in shaping events.
George Soros
The big difference between Jim Rogers and me was that Jim thought that the prevailing view was always wrong, whereas I thought that we may be wrong also.
George Soros
What beliefs do is alter facts.
George Soros
I want to buy $300 million of bonds, so start by selling $50 million. I want to see what the market feels like first.
George Soros
If the stock goes up, you buy more. You don’t care how big the position gets as part of your portfolio. If you get it right, then build.
George Soros
[Success comes from] preservation of capital and home runs.
George Soros
To be successful you need leisure. You need time hanging heavily on your hands.
George Soros
The trouble with you, Byron [Byron Wein – Morgan Stanley], is that you go to work every day [and think] you should do something. I don’t, I only go to work on the days that make sense to go to work. And I really do something on that day. But you go to work and you do something every day and you don’t realise when it’s a special day.
George Soros
Where I do think I excel is in recognising my mistakes … that is the secret to my success.
George Soros
I am my most severe critic.
George Soros
Testing your views is essential in the financial markets.
George Soros
[Importance of keeping your mouth shut. A TV interviewer: ‘George what are your favourite stocks?’] I’m not going to tell you.
George Soros
Speculators ought to keep quiet and speculate.
George Soros
I changed my mind, and made an absolute fortune.
George Soros
I am willing to use different people employing different approaches as long as I can rely on their integrity.
George Soros
I’m a very bad judge of character. I’m a good judge of stocks, and I have a reasonably good perspective on history. But I am, really quite awful in judging character, and so I’ve made many mistakes.
George Soros
I felt the Fund was an organism, a parasite, sucking my blood and draining my energy.
George Soros
More money, more responsibility, more work – and more pain – because I relied on pain as a decision-making tool.
George Soros
Probably the most tangible benefit [of being a billionaire] is that I get very good tennis games.
George Soros
A benefit of being successful was that I could afford the things I wanted, but I did not have extravagant tastes. I always lived on a scale that was more modest than my financial resources.
George Soros
If you’re having fun, you’re probably not making any money.
George Soros
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