Top 500 Ray Dalio Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “My experience over this period was like a series of blows to the head with a baseball bat. Being so wrong – and especially so publicly wrong – was incredibly humbling and cost me just about everything I had built at Bridgewater. I saw that I had been an arrogant jerk who was totally confident in a totally incorrect view.”

— Ray Dalio

352. “I’ve also learned that judging people before really seeing things through their eyes stands in the way of understanding their circumstances – and that isn’t smart.”

— Ray Dalio

353. “They move on to fix problems without getting at their root causes, which is a recipe for continued failure.”

— Ray Dalio

354. “The main test of a great partnership is not whether the partners ever disagree – people in all healthy relationships disagree – but whether they can bring their disagreements to the surface and get through them well.”

— Ray Dalio

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

— Ray Dalio

356. “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

357. “Chances are you won’t have time to deal with the unimportant things, which is better than not having time to deal with the impor-tant things. I often hear people say, “Wouldn’t it be good to do this or that?” It’s likely they are being distracted from far more important things that need to be done well.”

— Ray Dalio

358. “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

359. “Evolve or die. This evolutionary cycle is not just for people but for countries, companies, economies – for everything. And it is naturally self-correcting as a whole, though not necessarily for its parts.”

— Ray Dalio

360. “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

361. “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

362. “Focus on the “what is” before deciding “what to do about it.”

— Ray Dalio

363. “I also punched my boss in the face. Not surprisingly, I was fired.”

— Ray Dalio

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

— Ray Dalio

365. “Enforce the logic of conversations. People’s emotions tend to heat up when there is disagreement. Remain calm and analytical at all times; it is more difficult to shut down a logical exchange than an emotional one. Remember too that emotions can shade how people see reality.”

— Ray Dalio

366. “Don’t get frustrated. If nothing bad is happening to you now, wait a bit and it will. That is just reality.”

— Ray Dalio

367. “In thinking about the relative importance of great relationships and money, it was clear that relationships were more important because there is no amount of money I would take in exchange for a meaningful relationship, because there is nothing I could buy with that money that would be more valuable.”

— Ray Dalio

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

— Ray Dalio

369. “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

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

— Ray Dalio

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

— Ray Dalio

372. “I believe one of the most valuable things you can do to improve your decision making is to think through your principles for making decisions.”

— Ray Dalio

373. “Aristotle defined tragedy as a terrible outcome arising from a person’s fatal flaw – a flaw that, had it been fixed, instead would have led to a wonderful outcome.”

— Ray Dalio

374. “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

375. “Know that the most constant struggle is between feeling and thinking.”

— Ray Dalio

376. “From this perspective, we can see that perfection doesn’t exist; it is a goal that fuels a never-ending process of adaptation.”

— Ray Dalio

377. “Avoid getting sucked down. This occurs when a manager is pulled down to doing the tasks of a subordinate without acknowledging the problem.”

— Ray Dalio

378. “People interested in making the best possible decisions are rarely confident that they have the best answers.”

— Ray Dalio

379. “Be an imperfectionist. Perfectionists spend too much time on little differences at the margins at the expense of the important things.”

— Ray Dalio

380. “For most people, being part of a great community on a shared mission is even more rewarding than money. Numerous studies have shown there is little to no correlation between one’s happiness and the amount of money one accumulates, yet there is a strong correlation between one’s happiness and the quality of one’s relationships.”

— Ray Dalio

381. “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

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

— Ray Dalio

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

— Ray Dalio

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

— Ray Dalio

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

— Ray Dalio

386. “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

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

— Ray Dalio

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

— Ray Dalio

389. “Knowing how to deal well with your setbacks is as important as knowing how to move forward.”

— Ray Dalio

390. “Power should lie in the reasoning, not the position, of the individual.”

— Ray Dalio

391. “Sincerely believe that you might not know the best possible path and recognize that your ability to deal well with “not knowing” is more important than whatever it is you do know.”

— Ray Dalio

392. “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

393. “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

394. “But this approach fails in cases where the future is different from the past and you don’t know the cause-effect relationships well enough to recognize them all. Understanding these relationships as I do has saved me from making mistakes when others did, most obviously in the 2008 financial crisis. Nearly everyone else assumed that the future would be similar to the past. Focusing strictly on the logical cause-effect relationships was what allowed us to see what was really going on.”

— Ray Dalio

395. “Never rule out a goal because you think it’s unattainable. Be audacious. There is always a best possible path. Your job is to find it and have the courage to follow it. What you think is attainable is just a function of what you know at the moment. Once you start your pursuit you will learn a lot, especially if you triangulate with others; paths you never saw before will emerge.”

— Ray Dalio

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

— Ray Dalio

397. “Espero que la lectura de este libro te anime, a ti y a otros, a descubrir tus propios principios, entre aquellos que considereis mejores, y los anoteis.”

— Ray Dalio

398. “From this perspective, we can see that perfection doesn’t exist; it is a goal that fuels a never-ending process of adaptation. If nature, or anything, were perfect it wouldn’t be evolving. Organisms, organizations, and individual people are always highly imperfect but capable of improving. So rather than getting stuck hiding our mistakes and pretending we’re perfect, it makes sense to find our imperfections and deal with them.”

— Ray Dalio

399. “No matter what you want out of life, your ability to adapt and move quickly and efficiently through the process of personal evolution will determine your success and your happiness.”

— Ray Dalio

400. “Know where the line is and be on the far side of fair.”

— Ray Dalio