“Find the trend whose premise is false, and bet against it.”

When a long-term trend loses it’s momentum, short-term volatility tends to rise. It is easy to see why that should be so: the trend-following crowd is disoriented.

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.

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, And ev’n with Paradise devise the snake; For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man Is blackened – Man’s forgiveness give and take!

Better is the sinner who hath thoughts about God, than the saint who hath only the show of sanctity.

Should they whisper false of you, Never trouble to deny; Should the words they say be true, Weep and storm and say they lie.

After reading between the lines, I can secretly hear Socrates screaming: ‘I’m the wisest man to ever live in the world. Anyone who will claim that title after me he’s fake!

A hair divides what is false and true.

There is nothing that is more often clothed in an attractive garb than a false creed.

A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself.

A peace-mingling falsehood is preferable to a mischief-stirring truth.