“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round 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
“Be self aware, rather than a repetitious robot”
―
Bruce Lee
“The world is full of people who are determined to be somebody or to give trouble. They want to get ahead, to stand out. Such ambition has no use for a gung fu man, who rejects all forms of self-assertiveness and competition”
―
Bruce Lee
“To see a thing uncolored by one’s own personal preferences and desires is to see it in its own pristine simplicity.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.”
―
Bruce Lee
“If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow -- you are not understanding yourself.”
―
Bruce Lee
“For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Relationship is a process of self-revelation.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Effort within the mind further limits the mind, because effort implies struggle towards a goal and when you have a goal, a purpose, an end in view, you have placed a limit on the mind.”
―
Bruce Lee
“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Self-knowledge involves relationship. To know oneself is to study one self in action with another person. Relationship is a process of self evaluation and self revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself - to be is to be related.”
―
Bruce Lee
