Ray Dalio Quotes

If you limit your goals to what you know you can achieve, you are setting the bar way too low.

It seems to me that life consists of three phases. In the first, we are dependent on others and we learn. In the second, others depend on us and we work. And in the third and last, when others no longer depend on us and we no longer have to work, we are free to savor life.

Don’t pay as much attention to people’s conclusions as to the reasoning that led them to their conclusions.

Remember that weaknesses don’t matter if you find solutions.

I believe that the reason people typically miss the big moments of evolution coming at them in life is because they experience only tiny pieces of what’s happening. We are like ants preoccupied with our jobs of carrying crumbs in our very brief lifetimes instead of having a broader perspective of the big-picture patterns and cycles, the important interrelated things driving them, where we are within the cycles, and what’s likely to transpire.

Much as I loved the job and the people I worked with, I didn’t fit into the Shearson organization. I was too wild. For example, as a joke that now seems pretty stupid, I hired a stripper to drop her cloak while I was lecturing at a whiteboard at the California Grain & Feed Association’s annual convention. I also punched my boss in the face. Not surprisingly, I was fired. But the brokers, their clients, and even the ones who fired me liked me and wanted to keep getting my advice. Even better, they were willing to pay me for it, so in 1975 I started Bridgewater Associates.

Strategic thinking requires both diagnosis and design.

The pursuit of dreams is what gives life its flavor.

To be effective you must not let your need to be right be more important than your need to find out what’s true. If you are too proud of what you know or of how good you are at something you will learn less, make inferior decisions, and fall short of your potential.

The most believable opinions are those of people who 1) have repeatedly and successfully accomplished the thing in question, and 2) have demonstrated that they can logically explain the cause-effect relationships behind their conclusions. When believability weighting is done correctly and consistently, it is the fairest and the most effective decision-making system. It not only produces the best outcomes but also preserves alignment, since even people who disagree with the decision will be able to get behind it.

Embrace Reality and Deal with It

The biggest mistake most people make is to not see themselves and others objectively, which leads them to bump into their own and others’ weaknesses again and again. People who do this fail because they are stubbornly stuck in their own heads.

first principle: • Think for yourself to decide 1) what you want, 2) what is true, and 3) what you should do to achieve #1 in light of #2 . . . . . . and do that with humility and open-mindedness so that you consider the best thinking available to you.

There were only two big forces to worry about: growth and inflation.

Reality, in turn, will send you loud signals about how well your principles are working by rewarding or punishing you, so you will learn to fine-tune them accordingly.