Stanley Druckenmiller Quotes

The way to build long-term returns is through preservation of capital and home runs.

Soros has taught me that when you have tremendous conviction on a trade, you have to go for the jugular. It takes courage to be a pig. It takes courage to ride a profit with huge leverage.

In a rising market, enough of your bad ideas will pay off so that you'll never learn that you should have fewer ideas.

You don't get rewarded for taking risk; you get rewarded for buying cheap assets. And if the assets you bought got pushed up in price simply because they were risky, then you are not going to be rewarded for taking a risk; you are going to be punished for it.

If you are not making any mistakes, you are being excessively risk-averse. Investing involves risk, and that means you will occasionally be wrong. And although it is okay to be wrong, it is not okay to stay wrong.

When you trade sometimes you lose.

A lot of my friends tried to talk me out of running.

Be cautious and content with low positive returns in 2015. The time for risk taking has passed.

No matter how skillful the trading scheme, over the long haul, abnormal returns are sustained only through abnormal exposure to risk.

With each investment you make, you should have the courage and the conviction to place at least ten per cent of your net worth in that stock

If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds.... I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.

When people ask me what I do for a living, I generally tell them 'I run a hedge fund.' The majority give me a strange look, so I quickly add, 'I am a money manager.' When the strange look persists, as it often does, I correct it to simply, 'I'm an investor.' Everyone knows what that is.

That is, many times we're not risking our own money, we're risking somebody else's money, or maybe that someone is going to back stop or downside, but we still get the upside.

In the long run, a portfolio of well chosen stocks and/or equity mutual funds will always outperform a portfolio of bonds or a money-market account. In the long run, a portfolio of poorly chosen stocks won't outperform the money left under the mattress.

You can't find intimacy - you can't find home - when you're always hiding behind masks. Intimacy requires a certain level of vulnerability. It requires a certain level of you exposing your fragmented, contradictory self to someone else. You running the risk of having your core self rejected and hurt and misunderstood.

To the warriors of light, there is no such thing as impossible love. They don’t allow themselves to be intimidated by silence, or by rejection. They know that – behind the icy mask people wear – there is a heart of fire. That is why the warriors risk more than others. They tirelessly seek love – even if this means hearing, many times over, the word ‘no’, returning home defeated, feeling rejected in body and soul. Warriors don’t allow themselves to be discouraged. Without love, live has no meaning.

Hedge funds are a very efficient way of managing money. But there are clearly some risks. Hedge funds use credit and credit is a source of instability. Transactions involving credit should be regulated.

In investing, just as in baseball, to put runs on the scoreboard, one must watch the playing field, not the scoreboard.

We're in the business not so much of being contrarians deliberately, but rather we like to take perceived risk instead of actual risk. And what I mean by that is that you get paid for taking a risk that people think is risky, you particularly don't get paid for taking actual risk.

I think bravery is when you're willing to really put yourself on the line and maybe lose out, financially - and be able to say exactly what motivates you and what inspires you and what you find completely unacceptable in humanity and in culture.

To become wise you have to want to experience certain experiences, and so to run into their open jaws. This is very dangerous, tobe sure; many a "wise man" has been eaten up in doing so.

Stock-picking is like gambling: those who win well, seldom bet, but when they do, they bet heavily.

Be fearful when the markets get greedy, be greedy when the markets get fearful.

Your greatest regret at the end of your life will be the lions you didn't chase. You will look back longingly on risks not taken, opportunities not seized, and dreams not pursued. Stop running away from what scares you most and start chasing the God-ordained opportunities that cross your path.

Sometimes I think we can tell how important it is to risk by how dangerous it is to do so.