Ray Dalio Quotes

Some people go through life collecting all kinds of observations and opinions like pocket lint, instead of just keeping what they need. They have “detail anxiety,” worrying about unimportant things.

I also feared boredom and mediocrity much more than I feared failure. For me, great is better than terrible, and terrible is better than mediocre, because terrible at least gives life flavor.

The key is to fail, learn, and improve quickly. If you’re constantly learning and improving, your evolutionary process will be ascending. Do do it poorly, it will be descending. So I believe evolving is life’s greatest accomplishment and its greatest award.

no manager at any level can expect to succeed without the skill set of an organizational engineer.

no system of government, no economic system, no currency, and no empire lasts forever, yet almost everyone is surprised and ruined when they fail.

...human greatness and terribleness are not correlated with wealth or other conventional measures of success. 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. 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.

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.

Embrace Reality and Deal with It 1.1 Be a hyperrealist. a. Dreams + Reality + Determination = A Successful Life. 1.2 Truth — or, more precisely, an accurate understanding of reality — is the essential foundation for any good outcome. 1.3 Be radically open-minded and radically transparent. a. Radical open-mindedness and radical transparency are invaluable for rapid learning and effective change. b. Don’t let fears of what others think of you stand in your way. c. Embracing radical truth and radical transparency will bring more meaningful work and more meaningful relationships. 1.4 Look to nature to learn how reality works. a. Don’t get hung up on your views of how things “should” be because you will miss out on learning how they really are. b. To be “good,” something must operate consistently with the laws of reality and contribute to the evolution of the whole; that is what is most rewarded. c. Evolution is the single greatest force in the universe; it is the only thing that is permanent and it drives everything. d. Evolve or die. 1.5 Evolving is life’s greatest accomplishment and its greatest reward. a. The individual’s incentives must be aligned with the group’s goals. b. Reality is optimizing for the whole — not for you. c. Adaptation through rapid trial and error is invaluable. d. Realize that you are simultaneously everything and nothing — and decide what you want to be. e. What you will be will depend on the perspective you have. 1.6 Understand nature’s practical lessons. a. Maximize your evolution. b. Remember “no pain, no gain.” c. It is a fundamental law of nature that in order to gain strength one has to push one’s limits, which is painful. 1.7 Pain + Reflection = Progress. a. Go to the pain rather than avoid it. b. Embrace tough love. 1.8 Weigh second- and third-order consequences. 1.9 Own your outcomes. 1.10 Look at the machine from the higher level. a. Think of yourself as a machine operating within a machine and know that you have the ability to alter

Seek out the smartest people who disagreed with me so I could try to understand their reasoning. 2. Know when not to have an opinion. 3. Develop, test, and systemize timeless and universal principles. 4. Balance risks in ways that keep the big upside while reducing the downside.

My painful mistakes shifted me from having a perspective of “I know I’m right” to having one of “How do I know I’m right?

The best behaviors one can hope for come from leaders who can weigh the benefits of cooperation, and who have long enough time frames that they can see how the gifts they give this year may bring them benefits in the future.

What was most important wasn't knowing the future — it was knowing how to react appropriately to the information available at each point in time.

Remember the 80/20 Rule and know what the key 20 percent is. The 80/20 Rule states that you get 80 percent of the value out of something from 20 percent of the information or effort. (It’s also true that you’re likely to exert 80 percent of your effort getting the final 20 percent of value.) Understanding this rule saves you from getting bogged down in unnecessary detail once you’ve gotten most of the learning you need to make a good decision.

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

When encountering your weaknesses you have four choices: 1. You can deny them (which is what most people do). 2. You can accept them and work at them in order to try to convert them into strengths (which might or might not work depending on your ability to change). 3. You can accept your weaknesses and find ways around them. 4. Or, you can change what you are going after.