“What you must not do now is to worry and think of the Nationals that is now of the past. What you HABITUALLY THINK largely determines what you will become. Remember, success is a journey, not a destination. I have faith in your ability. You will do just fine.”
―
Bruce Lee
“The ideal is unnatural naturalness, or natural unnaturalness. I mean it is a combination of both.
I mean here is natural instinct and here is control. You are to combine the two in harmony.
Not if you have one to the extreme, you'll be very unscientific.
If you have another to the extreme, you become, all of a sudden, a mechanical man
No longer a human being.
It is a successful combination of both.
That way it is a process of continuing growth.
Be water, my friend.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Voidness is that which stands right in the middle between this and that. The void is all-inclusive, having no opposite--there is nothing which it excludes or opposes. It is living void, because all forms come out of it and whoever realizes the void is filled with life and power and the love of all beings.”
―
Bruce Lee
“As long as I can remember I feel I have had this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force which I hold in my hand.”
―
Bruce Lee
“The enemy of development is this pain phobia - the unwillingness to do a tiny bit of suffering.”
―
Bruce Lee
“The disease of philosophy. - Philosophy is itself the disease for which it pretends to be the cure: the wise man does not pursue wisdom but lives his life, and therein precisely does his wisdom lie.”
―
Bruce Lee
“The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits.”
―
Bruce Lee
“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
―
Bruce Lee
“...we have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone and we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Goals give life substance. - To strive actively to achieve some goal gives your life meaning and substance.”
―
Bruce Lee
“I wish neither to possess nor to be possessed. I no longer covet 'paradise'. More important, I no longer fear 'hell'.
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, consuming myself.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”
―
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
“...good technique includes quick changes, great variety and speed. It may be a system of reversals much like a concept of God and the Devil. In the speed of events, which one is really in charge?...to put the heart of martial arts inyour own heart and have it be a part of you means total comprehension and the use of a free style. When you have that you will know that there are no limits.”
―
Bruce Lee
“All these years later, people still wonder about how Bruce died. I prefer to remember how he lived. ”
―
Bruce Lee
