Quotes by george soros

...The market is a hard task master: It does not allow either self-indulgence or consideration for others. What others think of you matters, but the results--measured by and objective criterion, money--matters more. Having an objective criterion encourages objective performance. That is what makes financial markets so efficient.: they turn people into profit-making machines. That has its merits, but a society dominated by financial markets could easily become inhuman. this is not a flight of fancy but a present danger.

...Whenever there is a conflict between universl principles and sel-interest, sel-interest is likely to prevail...

...Most businesspeople are upright citizens; but that does not change the fact that business is conducted for private gain and not for the public benefit. The primary responsibility of management is to the owners of the business, not to some nebulous entity called the public interest—although enterprises often try, or at least pretend, to be acting in a public-spirited way because that is good for business. 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.

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.