Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.
Interpretation
Acknowledging our flawed understanding is essential and correcting our mistakes is a virtue.
This quote by George Soros emphasizes that it is a fundamental aspect of being human to have an imperfect understanding of the world. Rather than feeling ashamed about making mistakes, we should focus on the importance of recognizing and correcting them, as this is a key part of personal growth and learning.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth and learning from failures.
The securitisation of mortgages added a new dimension of systemic risk. Financial engineers claimed they were reducing risks through geographic diversification: in fact they were increasing them by creating an agency problem. The agents were more interested in maximising fee income than in protecting the interests of bondholders. That is the verity that was ignored by regulators and market participants alike.
The collapse of the global marketplace would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I find it easier to imagine than the continuation of the present regime.
Regulating and taxing marijuana would simultaneously save taxpayers billions of dollars in enforcement and incarceration costs, while providing many billions of dollars in revenue annually.
We are the most powerful nation on earth. No external power, no terrorist organization can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire.
My foundations support people in the country who care about an open society. It's their work that I'm supporting. So it's not me doing it. But I can empower them. I can support them, and I can help them.
The criminalization of marijuana did not prevent marijuana from becoming the most widely used illegal substance in the United States and many other countries. But it did result in extensive costs and negative consequences.
Any man who, having planted a vineyard, has not yet reaped the benefits should do so at once, so that he does not die in the struggle and leave it for another to enjoy.
I have a lot of what you might call creative self-loathing - I have pretty high expectations, and they seem to consistently be higher than what I'm able to accomplish.
No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There is always work, and tools to work with, for those who will, and blessed are the horny hands of toil. The busy world shoves angrily aside the man who stands with arms akimbo until occasion tells him what to do; and he who waits to have his task marked out shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.
Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them.
Judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how you respond to it.
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