“If the bubbles contain a misconception, as they always do, then it can’t be maintained forever.”

I’m only rich because I know when I’m wrong…I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes.

What works for Germany can’t work for the rest of Europe: No country can run a chronic surplus without others running deficits.

The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposite position. I assume that markets are always wrong.

The hardest thing to judge is what level of risk is safe.

If I had to sum up my practical skills, I would use one word: survival. And operating a hedge fund utilized my training in survival to the fullest.

Fundamental analysis seeks to establish how underlying values are reflected in stock prices, whereas the theory of reflexivity shows how stock prices can influence underlying values.

Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.

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.

The global crisis is caused by pathologies inherent in the global financial system itself.

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

Markets can influence the events that they anticipate.

I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes.

There is no point in being confident and having a small position.

America needs to follow the policies it has introduced in Germany. We have to go through a certain de-Nazification 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.

Every bubble has two components: something – some real trend, and a misconception about that trend.