Bruce Lee Quotes

It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.

Don't ignore the five senses in search of a sixth.

The timeless moment. - The "moment" has no yesterday or tomorrow. It is not the result of thought and therefore has no time.

Simplicity is the key to brilliance.

If every man would help his neighbor, no man would be without help.

Like everyone else, you want to learn the way to win, but never to accept the way to lose - to accept defeat. To learn to die is to be liberated from it. So when tomorrow comes you must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying!

To live is to express oneself freely

Even today, I dare not say that I have reached a state of achievement. I'm still learning, for learning is boundless.

Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.

The moment is freedom. - I couldn't live by a rigid schedule. I try to live freely from moment to moment, letting things happen and adjusting to them.

What we are after is the root and not the branches. The root is the real knowledge; the branches are surface knowledge. Real knowledge breeds 'body feel' and personal expression; surface knowledge breeds mechanical conditioning and imposing limitation and squelches creativity.

It's not what you give, it's the way you give it.

If your opponent is at a distance, kick him in the groin. If he gets close, poke him in the eyes, bring up your knee, pop him with an elbow, dig a corkscrew punch to his stomach.

Only the self-sufficient stand alone - most people follow the crowd and imitate.

Take what's useful, discard what is not.

To reach me, you must move to me. Your attack offers me an opportunity to intercept you.

Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.

Ultimately the greatest help is self-help.

Life is better lived than conceptualized. - This writing can be less demanding should I allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I've come to understand that life is best to be lived - not to be conceptualized. If you have to think, you still do not understand.

By adopting a certain physical posture, a resonant chord is struck in spirit.

My strength comes from my abdomen. It's the center of gravity and the source of real power.

We are told that talent creates opportunity, yet it is desire that creates talent.

A man strikes you, make him bleed. He makes you bleed, you break his bones. He breaks your bones, kill him. Being hit is inevitable, strike back twice as hard.

Every man today is the result of his thoughts yesterday.

Too much concentration belittles life. Concentration is a narrowing down of the mind - but we are concerned with the total process of living, and to concentrate exclusively on any particular aspect of life, belittles life.

True mastery transcends any particular art. It stems from mastery of oneself--the ability, developed through self-discipline, to be calm, fully aware, and completely in tune with oneself and the surroundings. Then, and only then, can a person know himself.

Have no rigid system in you, and you'll be flexible to change with the ever changing.

Never try to copy a successful personality.

Using no way as a way, having no limitation as limitation.

Endurance is lost rapidly if one ceases to work at its maximum.

The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.

While it may come as a profound surprise to those of us who are in the throes of an emotional or life crisis, the fact remains that the answer to virtually all of our problems resides within us already. It exist in the form of a vast reservoir of free-flowing energy that, when channeled to our muscles, can give us great strength and, when channeled to our brain, can give us great insight and understanding.

To be honest to oneself, and that is very hard to do.

I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.

Faith makes it possible to achieve that which man's mind can conceive and believe.

Truth comes when your mind and heart are purged of all sense of striving and you are no longer trying to become somebody; it is there when the mind is very quiet, listening timelessly to everything.

Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception.

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.

Learning is never cumulative, it is a movement of knowing which has no beginning and no end.

Everyone wants to learn how to win, but no one wants to learn how to accept defeat.

A kung fu man lives without being dependant on the opinions of others, and a master, unlike the beginner, holds himself in reserve. He is quiet and unassuming, with no desire to show off.

Be a calm beholder of what is happening around you.

Though they play an important role in the early stages, the techniques should not be too mechanical, complex, or restrictive. Remember, you are expressing the techniques and not doing the techniques. When attacked, your response is not technique 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
rather you simply move in like sound and echo, without any deliberation. React as when I throw something to you, you catch it. Nothing else.

I believe in having a few pupils at one time as it requires a constant alert observation of each individual in order to establish a direct relationship. A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine ... each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting.

The unfolding of the bare human soul ... that is what interests me.

The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits.

Remember no man is really defeated unless he is discouraged.

When you point to the moon, what do you see in front of your finger; Your task is to feel, not to think, when you can understand that the lesson will be learned.

Learn it all, then forget it all.

What Is, is more important than What Should Be.

Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

Action is a highroad to self-esteem.

If you knew you had to fight for your life tomorrow, would you change your training today?

To take responsibility for one's own actions, good and bad, is something else.

The usefulness of the cup is its emptiness.

Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal.

If you truly love life, don't waste time because time is what life is made of.

To free one's self from preconceived notions, prejudices, and conditioned responses is essential to understanding truth and reality.

The more complicated and restricted the method, the less opportunity for expression of one's original sense of freedom.

Be a practical dreamer backed by action.

Art lives where absolute freedom is because when it is not, there can be no creativity.

Learning is definitely not mere imitation, nor is it the ability to accumulate and regurgitate fixed knowledge. Learning is a constant process of discovery - a process without end.

If there is always light, you don't experience light anymore. You have to have the rhythm of light and darkness.

Use karate, judo, aikido, or any style to build your counter-offensive. It will be interesting!

It is the man that has nothing to lose or is willing to lose everything to beat you that I am afraid of. If a man is willing to lose his life to bite off my nose then I don't care how good I am or what I do to him- he's gonna get my nose.

Running water never grows stale.

Training for strength and flexibility is a must. You must use it to support your techniques. Techniques alone are no good if you don't support them with strength and flexibility.

I don't believe in different ways of fighting now. I mean, unless human beings have 3 arms and 3 legs, then we will have a different way of fighting. But basically we all have two arms and two legs so that is why I believe there should be only one way of fighting and that is no way.

The martial arts are based upon understanding, hard work and a total comprehension of skills. Power training and the use of force are easy, but total comprehension of all of the skills of the martial arts is very difficult to achieve.

Linda and I aren't one and one. We are two halves that make a whole
two halves fitted together are more efficient than either half would ever be alone!

I've come to understand that life is best lived, not conceptualized.

Never waste energy on worries or negative thoughts, all problems are brought into existence -drop them.

The past is an illusion. You must learn to live in the present and accept yourself for what you are now. What you lack in flexibility and agility you must make up with knowledge and constant practice.

The difference between an expert and a novice fighter is that the expert makes use of each opportunity

Loneliness is only an opportunity to cut adrift and find yourself. In solitude you are least alone.

Take inventory of everyone with whom you have contact.

The word "superstar" is an ilusion

When one is not expressing himself, he is not free. thus, he begins to struggle and the struggle breeds methodical routine. Soon, he is doing his methodical routine as response rather than responding to what is.

In combat, spontaneity rules; rote performance of technique perishes.

The athlete who is building muscles though weight training should be very sure to work adequately on speed and flexibility at the same time. In combat, without the prior attributes, a strong man will be like the bull with its colossal strength futilely pursuing the matador or like a low-geared truck chasing a rabbit.

To contemplate a thing implies maintaining oneself OUTSIDE it, resolved to keep a distance between it and ourselves.

Boards don't hit back.

Defense is attack, attack is defense, each being the cause and result of the other.

Masters in all branches of art must first be masters in living, for the soul creates everything.

Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.

One will never get any more than he thinks he can get. YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES. Look back and see your progress - damn the torpedo, full speed ahead!

Either you understand or you don't, and that is that.

Showing off is the fool's idea of glory.

The biggest adversary in our life is ourselves. We are what we are, in a sense, because of the dominating thoughts we allow to gather in our head. All concepts of self-improvement, all actions and paths we take, relate solely to our abstract image of ourselves. Life is limited only by how we really see ourselves and feel about our being. A great deal of pure self-knowledge and inner understanding allows us to lay an all-important foundation for the structure of our life from which we can perceive and take the right avenues.

Taoist philosophy is essentially monistic. Matter and energy, Yang and Yin, heaven and earth, are conceived of as essentially one or as two coexistent poles of one indivisible whole.

If mere mechanical efficiency can make everyone a martial artist, then all is well. Unfortunately, combat, like freedom, is something that can not be preconceived.

You and your opponent are one. There is a coexisting relationship between you. You coexist with your opponent and become his complement, absorbing his attack and using his force to overcome him.

I don't know what is the meaning of death, but I am not afraid to die - and I go on, non-stop, going forward [with life]. Even though I, Bruce Lee, may die some day without fulfilling all of my ambitions, I will have no regrets. I did what I wanted to do and what I've done, I've done with sincerity and to the best of my ability. You can't expect much more from life.

Faith is a state of mind that can be conditioned through self-discipline. Faith will accomplish.

To see is to be decieved. To hear is to be lied to. To FEEL is to believe.

Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.

There are too many stars and too few actors.

All martial arts is simply an honest expression of one's body - with a lot of deception in between.

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

Do not be tense, just be ready, not thinking but not dreaming, not being set but being flexible.