“Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul.”
―
Bruce Lee
“To Bruce Lee, philosophy was not the professional playground of academics, but every human being’s gateway to the greatest adventure of the human spirit. It illuminated the frontiers of human possibility and obliterated the shadows of doubt and insecurity. Unlike others, content to follow, Bruce Lee insisted upon charting his own course toward truth, and he encouraged those who wished to share his insights to do likewise. While Lee was a champion of individual rights and individual development, both of which stress the sovereignty of the individual as an end in himself, he also spoke to something deeper—the commonality of all human beings and the removal of such artificial barriers to true brotherhood as nationality, ethnicity, and class structure, so that human beings could live together peaceably as independent equals. Bruce Lee rejected blind obedience to”
―
Bruce Lee
“The doubters said,
"Man can not fly,"
The doers said,
"Maybe, but we'll try,"
And finally soared
In the morning glow
While non-believers
Watched from below.”
―
Bruce Lee
“The enemy of development is this pain phobia - the unwillingness to do a tiny bit of suffering.”
―
Bruce Lee
“The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
―
Bruce Lee
“If you think a thing is impossible,you'll only make it impossible.”
―
Bruce Lee
“But neither can you condemn nor justify and yet be extraordinarily alive as you walk on.
You can never invite the wind but you must leave the window open.”
―
Bruce Lee
“It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves.
This difference between self-actualization and self-image actualization is very important. Most people live only for their image”
―
Bruce Lee
“The path of self-realisation is the most difficult. -We acquire a sense of worth either by realising our talents, or by keeping busy, or by identifying ourselves with something apart from us - be it a cause, a leader, a group, possessions, and the like. Of the three, the path of self-realisation is the most difficult. It is taken when other avenues to a sense of worth are more or less blocked.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Everything you do, if not in a relaxed state will be done at a lesser level than you are proficient. Thus the tensed expert marksman will aim at a level less than his/her student.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”
―
Bruce Lee
“The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning, but I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it until this moment. Now I see that I will never find the light unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel.”
―
Bruce Lee