George Soros Biography Quotes 30 Report mistakes

Early Life and Family
George Soros, born Gyorgy Schwartz on August 12, 1930, in Budapest, Hungary, grew up in a middle-class Jewish family that valued education, languages, and independent thinking. His father, Tivadar (Theodore) Soros, was a lawyer and a committed Esperantist who cultivated in his sons a resourceful, skeptical outlook; his mother, Erzsebet (Elizabeth), helped anchor the family during volatile times. In the 1930s the family adopted the surname Soros, a change intended in part to navigate rising antisemitism. George had a close relationship with his older brother, Paul Soros, who later became an accomplished engineer and philanthropist in his own right. The brothers' bond, tested by war and emigration, would remain a recurring reference point in George Soros's life.

War and Survival
The Nazi occupation of Hungary in 1944 subjected the family to lethal danger. Guided by Tivadar's ingenuity, the Soroses survived through false identities and dispersed hiding places. As a teenager, George carried messages and took on small tasks that required calm under pressure. The experience of living by his wits during the occupation, and of watching institutions collapse into brutality, left a deep mark on him. It sharpened his sensitivity to the fragility of open societies and the importance of personal initiative, themes that would later define his philanthropy. The war also planted an early awareness of risk and uncertainty, a sensibility he later wove into a theory of markets based on fallibility and reflexivity.

Education and Formation in Britain
After the war and the onset of communist rule in Hungary, Soros left for Britain in 1947. He enrolled at the London School of Economics, where the philosopher Karl Popper became a crucial intellectual influence. Popper's argument that no one holds a monopoly on truth and that free, pluralistic institutions are needed to check error resonated with Soros's wartime lessons. To support himself, he worked a series of jobs, including as a waiter and a railway porter, before landing an entry-level position in finance at Singer & Friedlander in London. The combination of Popper's philosophy and the practical demands of postwar life shaped Soros's enduring interest in how imperfect knowledge drives human behavior in politics and markets.

Early Wall Street Career and Founding of Funds
In 1956, Soros moved to the United States to pursue opportunities in the expanding postwar financial industry. He worked first as an analyst and then as a portfolio manager at firms including F.M. Mayer, Wertheim & Co., and Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder. By the late 1960s he was ready to run money independently. In 1969 he launched an offshore fund that evolved into the Quantum Fund, and in 1970 he founded Soros Fund Management. He partnered for years with the investor Jim Rogers, developing an aggressive, research-driven global macro style that sought to identify large, mispriced trends in currencies, bonds, commodities, and equities. Soros framed his approach in terms of reflexivity: market participants' biased perceptions can alter fundamentals, creating feedback loops that drive booms and busts. This lens helped him both to capture outsized opportunities and to recognize, at times painfully, the inevitability of error.

Black Wednesday and Market Reputation
Soros's market reputation was cemented in 1992 during a confrontation with British monetary policy. Working closely with Stanley Druckenmiller, then a key strategist and portfolio manager at Soros Fund Management, he built a large position against the British pound, arguing that the currency could not be credibly maintained at its fixed rate within Europe's exchange rate mechanism. When the United Kingdom withdrew and devalued, the fund made substantial profits, and Soros was dubbed the man who broke the Bank of England. The episode made him a symbol of the power of global finance, praised by some for disciplined analysis and criticized by others for profiting from turmoil. Later market cycles brought both gains and losses, including setbacks around the Russian crisis of 1998, reinforcing his view that conviction must be paired with humility about fallibility.

Philanthropy and the Open Society Foundations
Soros began systematic philanthropy in 1979 by supporting scholarships for Black South Africans during apartheid. These early efforts grew into a far-reaching network known as the Open Society Foundations (OSF), which would operate on multiple continents to strengthen civil society, independent media, access to justice, public health, and educational opportunities. He worked closely with human rights advocate Aryeh Neier to build institutional capacity and to connect local reformers with international support. In the 1980s, Soros funded samizdat publishing, cultural exchanges, and economic education in Eastern Europe, helping activists and scholars prepare for democratic transitions. Over ensuing decades, OSF supported initiatives on Roma inclusion, drug policy reform focused on harm reduction, election transparency, and accountability in government spending. Soros ultimately committed many billions of dollars to these causes, making him one of the most significant individual philanthropists of his era.

Central European University and Eastern Europe
In the early 1990s, Soros founded the Central European University (CEU) to advance open inquiry and train a new generation of scholars and policy thinkers in the region emerging from authoritarian rule. Based for years in Budapest and also present in Prague and other locations, CEU combined international faculty with students from across the former Eastern bloc and beyond. It became a flagship expression of Soros's belief that institutions devoted to critical thinking are the best defense against dogmatism. Political headwinds later intensified: the Hungarian government led by Viktor Orban, who had once received support from a Soros foundation early in his career, moved to restrict CEU's legal standing in Hungary. Under pressure, the university shifted most degree programs to Vienna, a development that underscored the contested nature of open society in contemporary politics.

Ideas, Writings, and Public Engagement
Soros translated his market experiences and philosophical commitments into a series of books and essays. In The Alchemy of Finance he elaborated his theory of reflexivity and described how investor biases can shape economic outcomes. He later wrote about global capitalism, financial crises, and the European project, warning that technocratic confidence must be tempered by democratic accountability and social cohesion. In the United States he became a prominent donor to Democratic candidates and progressive causes, arguing that civic participation and rule of law are necessary for markets to function fairly. His visibility and spending also made him a lightning rod for criticism and conspiratorial attacks, many laced with antisemitic tropes. In 2002 a French court found him liable in an insider trading case related to a past investment; Soros denied wrongdoing and pursued legal appeals, which did not reverse the judgment. He continued nevertheless to speak publicly about financial regulation, inequality, and the responsibilities of wealth.

Personal Life and Family
Soros married three times: first to Annaliese Witschak, then to historian Susan Weber, and later to businesswoman Tamiko Bolton. He has five children: Robert, Andrea, Jonathan, Alexander, and Gregory. Several have been active in finance and philanthropy; Alexander Soros, in particular, has taken on leadership roles within the Open Society network. The broader family has pursued its own charitable endeavors, with Paul Soros and his wife, Daisy, known for supporting education and immigrant scholars. Soros's private life, like his public one, mixed cosmopolitan habits with a commitment to family ties and to institutional projects that outlast any single generation.

Later Years, Institutional Evolution, and Legacy
As regulatory and market conditions changed, Soros Fund Management transitioned from a hedge fund managing outside capital to a family office model, and Soros gradually reduced his involvement in day-to-day trading. The firm remained active as an investment entity while OSF expanded and adapted its programs, including responses to new forms of authoritarianism, disinformation, and public health challenges. In assessing Soros's legacy, supporters point to universities built, independent media sustained, and legal aid provided to marginalized communities; critics focus on the scale of his political giving and argue that his influence is excessive. Soros himself has framed his life's work as an effort to apply hard-earned lessons about uncertainty to both markets and society: that imperfect knowledge is the human condition, that institutions must be kept open to correction, and that the responsibilities of wealth are inseparable from the freedoms that wealth secures. The people around him, mentors like Karl Popper, partners such as Jim Rogers and Stanley Druckenmiller, philanthropic collaborators like Aryeh Neier, family members including Tivadar, Paul, and his children, and political antagonists such as Viktor Orban, trace the contours of a career lived at the intersection of high finance and civic life.

Our collection contains 30 quotes who is written by George, under the main topics: Justice - Leadership - Freedom - Peace - Decision-Making.

Other people realated to George: Michael Ignatieff (Politician)