Top 500 Ray Dalio Quotes (2024 Update)
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351. “I had grown up in an era of high volatility and had learned that the best way to play it was to get a hold of a big move and ride it.”

— Ray Dalio

352. “Diagnose Problems to Get at Their Root Causes.”

— Ray Dalio

353. “Fast talking can be especially effective when it’s used against people worried about appearing stupid. Don’t be one of those people. Recognize that it’s your responsibility to make sense of things and don’t move on until you do. If you’re feeling pressured, say something like “Sorry for being stupid, but I’m going to need to slow you down so I can make sense of what you’re saying.” Then ask your questions. All of them.”

— Ray Dalio

354. “There is no avoiding pain, especially if you’re going after ambitious goals. Believe it or not, you are lucky to feel that kind of pain if you approach it correctly, because it is a signal that you need to find solutions so you can progress.”

— Ray Dalio

355. “Make sure those who are given radical transparency recognize their responsibilities to handle it well and to weigh things intelligently. People cannot be given the privilege of receiving information and then use the information to harm the company, so rules and procedures must be in place to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

— Ray Dalio

356. “If you find you can’t reconcile major differences – especially in values – consider whether the relationship is worth preserving.”

— Ray Dalio

357. “To me, meaningful work is being on a mission I become engrossed in, and meaningful relationships are those I have with people I care deeply about and who care deeply about me. Think about it: It’s senseless to have making money as your goal as money has no intrinsic value – its value comes from what it can buy, and it can’t buy everything.”

— Ray Dalio

358. “I didn’t like school, not just because it required a lot of memorization, but because I wasn’t interested in most of the things my teachers thought were important. I never understood what doing well in school would get me other than my mother’s approval.”

— Ray Dalio

359. “I’ve always been an independent thinker inclined to take risks in search of rewards – not just in the markets, but in most everything.”

— Ray Dalio

360. “It is the rare bird who has the right mix of common sense, creativity, and character to shape change.”

— Ray Dalio

361. “Keep in mind both the rates of change and the levels of things, and the relationships between them. When determining an acceptable rate of improvement for something, it is its level in relation to the rate of change that matters.”

— Ray Dalio

362. “I urge you to be curious enough to want to understand how the people who see things differently from you came to see them that way. You will find that interesting and invaluable, and the richer perspective you gain will help you decide what you should do.”

— Ray Dalio

363. “Remember that people typically don’t change all that much.”

— Ray Dalio

364. “Remember that the quality of the life you get will depend largely on the quality of the decisions that you make as you pursue your goals.”

— Ray Dalio

365. “By recognizing the higher-level consequences nature optimizes for, I’ve come to see that people who overweigh the first-order consequences of their decisions and ignore the effects of second- and subsequent-order consequences rarely reach their goals. This is because first-order consequences often have opposite desirabilities from second-order consequences, resulting in big mistakes in decision making.”

— Ray Dalio

366. “Be an imperfectionist.”

— Ray Dalio

367. “Focusing strictly on the logical cause-effect relationships was what allowed us to see what was really going on.”

— Ray Dalio

368. “Evolving is life’s greatest accomplishment and its greatest reward.”

— Ray Dalio

369. “In order to be great, one can’t compromise the uncompromisable.”

— Ray Dalio

370. “Because most people are more emotional than logical, they tend to overreact to short-term results; they give up and sell low when times are bad and buy too high when times are good.”

— Ray Dalio

371. “We believe that thoughtful, unemotional disagreement by independent thinkers can be converted into believability-weighted decision making that is smarter and more effective than the sum of its parts.”

— Ray Dalio

372. “I learned that creative genius and insanity can be quite close to each other, that the same chemistry that creates insights can cause distortions, and that being stuck in one’s own head is terribly dangerous.”

— Ray Dalio

373. “Winston Churchill hit the nail on the head when he said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

— Ray Dalio

374. “Bad outcomes don’t just happen; they occur because specific people make, or fail to make, specific decisions.”

— Ray Dalio

375. “Most people do not look thoughtfully at the facts and draw their conclusions by objectively weighing the evidence. Instead, they make their decisions based on what their deep-seated subconscious mind wants and then they filter the evidence to make it consistent with those desires.”

— Ray Dalio

376. “Recognize that while most people prefer compliments, accurate criticism is more valuable. You’ve heard the expression “no pain no gain.”

— Ray Dalio

377. “Help people through the pain that comes with exploring their weaknesses. Emotions tend to heat up during most disagreements, especially when the subject is someone’s weaknesses. Speak in a calm, slow, and analytical manner to facilitate communication.”

— Ray Dalio

378. “Avoid staying too distant. You need to know your people extremely well, provide and receive regular feedback, and have quality discussions.”

— Ray Dalio

379. “Don’t let fears of what others think of you stand in your way. You must be willing to do things in the unique ways you think are best – and to open-mindedly reflect on the feedback that comes inevitably as a result of being that way.”

— Ray Dalio

380. “Get over “blame” and “credit” and get on with “accurate” and “inaccurate.” Worrying about “blame” and “credit” or “positive” and “negative” feedback impedes the iterative process that is essential to learning. Remember that what has already happened lies in the past and no longer matters except as a lesson for the future.”

— Ray Dalio

381. “To help you stay centered and effective, pretend that your life is a martial art or a game, the object of which is to get around a challenge and reach a goal. Once you accept its rules, you’ll get used to the discomfort that comes with the constant frustration.”

— Ray Dalio

382. “To have a real idea meritocracy, there must be transparency so that people can see things for themselves.”

— Ray Dalio

383. “I began to experience painful moments in a radically different way. Instead of feeling frustrated or overwhelmed, I saw pain as nature’s reminder that there is something important for me to learn.”

— Ray Dalio

384. “Never seize on the first available option, no matter how good it seems, before you’ve asked questions and explored. To prevent myself from falling into this trap, I used to literally ask myself questions: Am I learning? Have I learned enough yet that it’s time for deciding?”

— Ray Dalio

385. “It’ll be decades – and maybe never – before the computer can replicate many of the things that the brain can do in terms of imagination, synthesis, and creativity. That’s because the brain comes genetically programmed with millions of years of abilities honed through evolution. The “science” of decision making that underlies many computer systems remains much less valuable than the “art.”

— Ray Dalio

386. “Your part in an employee’s personal evolution begins with a frank assessment of their strengths and weaknesses, followed by a plan for how their weaknesses can be mitigated either through training or by switching to a different job that taps into their strengths and preferences.”

— Ray Dalio

387. “If you don’t mind being wrong on the way to being right you’ll learn a lot –.”

— Ray Dalio

388. “Even experts can make mistakes; my point is simply that it pays to be radically open-minded and triangulate with smart people.”

— Ray Dalio

389. “Great cultures bring problems and disagreements to the surface and solve them well, and they love imagining and building great things that haven’t been built before.”

— Ray Dalio

390. “It’s a basic reality that if you don’t experience the consequences of your actions, you’ll take less ownership of them.”

— Ray Dalio

391. “Be clear on whether you are arguing or seeking to understand, and think about which is most appropriate based on your and others’ believability.”

— Ray Dalio

392. “I now realize that nature optimizes for the whole, not for the individual, but most people judge good and bad based only on how it affects them.”

— Ray Dalio

393. “Raising the probability of being right is valuable no matter what your probability of being right already is.”

— Ray Dalio

394. “Humility is as important, or even more important, as having the strengths yourself.”

— Ray Dalio

395. “While it may seem counterintuitive, clearing your head can be the best way to make progress.”

— Ray Dalio

396. “I believe that the key to success lies in knowing how to both strive for a lot and fail well.”

— Ray Dalio

397. “Don’t let fears of what others think of you stand in your way.”

— Ray Dalio

398. “Get rid of irrelevant details so that the essential things and the relationships between them stand out.”

— Ray Dalio

399. “If you can think for yourself while being open-minded in a clearheaded way to find out what is best for you to do, and if you can summon up the courage to do it, you will make the most of your life. If you can’t do that, you should reflect on why that is, because that’s most likely your greatest impediment to getting more of what you want out of life.”

— Ray Dalio

400. “There is nothing more important than understanding how reality works and how to deal with it. The state of mind you bring to this process makes all the difference. I have found it helpful to think of my life as if it were a game in which each problem I face is a puzzle I need to solve.”

— Ray Dalio