Bruce Lee Quotes & Sayings

A good fight should be like a small play, but played seriously. — Bruce Lee

The word "superstar" is an ilusion — 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

Get maximum effect from minimum effort. — Bruce Lee

The aim of education. - Education: to discover but not merely to imitate. Learning techniques without inward experiencing can only lead to superficiality. — Bruce Lee

Life is an ever-flowing process and somewhere on the path some unpleasant things will pop up - it might leave a scar, but then life is flowing, and like running water, when it stops it grows stale. Go bravely on, my friend, because each experience teaches us a lesson. Keep blasting because life is such that sometimes it is nice and sometimes it is not. — Bruce Lee

False teachers of the Way of life use flowery words. — Bruce Lee

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

Some martial arts are very popular, real crowd pleasers, because they look good, have smooth techniques. but beware.They are like a wine that has been watered. A diluted wine is not a real wine, nto a good wine, hardly the genuine article. Some martial arts don't look so good, but you know that they have a kick, a tang, a genuine taste. They are like olives. The taste may be strong and bittersweet. The flavour lasts. You cultivate a taste for them. NO one ever developed a taste for diluted wine — Bruce Lee

Relationship is a process of self-revelation. — Bruce Lee

Choose the positive. You have choice, you are master of your attitude, choose the positive, the constructive. Optimism is a faith that leads to success. — Bruce Lee

Probably the most badass guy who ever lived on this planet! — Bruce Lee

Knowing is not enough, You must apply — Bruce Lee

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. — Bruce Lee

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

A self-willed man has no other aim than his own growth. — Bruce Lee

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. — Bruce Lee

Understanding requires not just a moment of perception, but a continuous awareness, a continuous state of inquiry without conclusion — Bruce Lee

Knowledge earns you power, character earns you respect. — Bruce Lee

Set patterns, incapable of adaptability, of pliability, only offer a better cage. Truth is outside of all patterns. — Bruce Lee

The future looks extremely bright indeed, with lots of possibilities ahead
big possibilities. Like the song says, We've just begun. — Bruce Lee

Bring the mind to a sharp focus and make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere. — Bruce Lee

There is no love without friendship. Passion alone does not form relationships of value. — Bruce Lee

Truth cannot be structured or confined. — Bruce Lee

You will never get any more out of life than you expect. — Bruce Lee

When you feel pain, you know that you are still alive. — Bruce Lee

To express yourself in freedom, you must die to everything of yesterday. From the 'old', you derive security; from the 'new', you gain the flow. — Bruce Lee

There's so much myth and baloney. Like a 80-year-old man able to manhandle a 300-pounder with his little finger. Ridiculous. Or this matter of breaking bricks and boards wth the edge of your hand. Now I ask you, did you ever see a brick or a board pick a fight with anybody? — Bruce Lee

Open yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the total openness of the living moment. — Bruce Lee

To develop the creative attitude, analyze and focus on the wanted SOLUTION; seek out and fill your mind with the FACTS; write down ideas, both sensible and seemingly wild; let the facts and ideas simmer in your mind; evaluate, recheck, settle on the creative ideas. — Bruce Lee

To tolerate is to insult. — Bruce Lee

The success of an assailant's attack depends on surprise, and if you're sufficiently alert to prevent a surprise, your counterattack is already halfway to being successful. — 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

After all, all knowledge simply means self-knowledge. — Bruce Lee

Like a cobra, your strike should be felt before it is seen. — Bruce Lee

Fear comes from uncertainty; we can eliminate the fear within us when we know ourselves better. As the great Sun Tzu said: When you know yourself and your opponent, you will win every time. When you know yourself but not your opponent, you will win one and lose one. However, when you do not know yourself or your opponent, you will be imperiled every time. — 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

Using no way as a way, having no limitation as limitation. — Bruce Lee

I personall do not believe in 'style'. Because of 'styles', people are separated. They are not united together because styles became law. — Bruce Lee

One should be in harmony with, not in opposition to, the strength and force of the opposition. This means that one should do nothing that is not natural or spontaneous; the important thing is not to strain in any way. — Bruce Lee

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

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

When one has reached maturity in the art, one will have a formless form. It is like ice dissolving in water. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, he can fit in with any style. — Bruce Lee

Maturation is the development from environmental support to self-support. — Bruce Lee

My style? You can call it the art of fighting without fighting. — Bruce Lee

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. — Bruce Lee

Life itself is your teacher, and you are in a state of constant learning. — Bruce Lee

Conditioning obstructs our view of reality. We do not see IT in its suchness because of our indoctrination, crooked and twisted. — Bruce Lee

Out of chaos, find simplicity, From discord, find harmony. — Bruce Lee

The essential quality of living life lies simply in the living. — Bruce Lee

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. — Bruce Lee

Each moment that passes changes you ... You can't even own yourself. How can you ever hope to own anyone or anything else. — Bruce Lee

Jeet Kune Do favors formlessness so that it can assume all forms and since Jeet Kune Do has no style, it can fit in with all styles. As a result, Jeet Kune Do utilizes all ways and is bound by none and, likewise, uses any techniques which serve its end. — Bruce Lee

The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a patter of systems. — Bruce Lee

The measure of the moral worth of a man is his happiness. The better the man, the more happiness. Happiness is the synonym of well-being — Bruce Lee

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

Genius: The capacity to see and to express what is simple, simply! — Bruce Lee

Before me now there is only one real fact
Death. The truth I have been seeking
this truth is Death. Yet Death is also a seeker. Forever seeking me. So
we have met at last. And I am prepared. I am at peace. Because I will conquer death with death. — Bruce Lee

Seek freedom from the conformity of styles — Bruce Lee

Jeet Kune Do, you see, has no definite lines or boundaries - only those you make yourself. — Bruce Lee

For those who kept saying it can't be done:
Never are the victories or the honors won.
But, rather,
By the believing, doing kind,
While the doubters watched
From Far Behind. — Bruce Lee

Sorrows are our best educator. A man can see further through a tear than a telescope. — Bruce Lee

When one has no form, one can be all forms. — Bruce Lee

Boards, don't hit back. ~Bruce Lee — Bruce Lee

Persistence, persistence, and persistence. The Power can be created and maintained through daily practice - continuous effort. — Bruce Lee

A teacher is never a giver of truth; he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself. — Bruce Lee

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

It is not what happens that is success or failure, but what it does to the heart of man. — Bruce Lee

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

All types of knowledge, ultimately mean self knowledge. — Bruce Lee

To see is to be decieved. To hear is to be lied to. To FEEL is to believe. — Bruce Lee

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

An instructor should exemplify the things he seeks to teach. It will be of great advantage if you yourself can do all you ask of your students and more. — Bruce Lee

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

Once I slow down because I think I have reached my peak, then my skills will go nowhere but down — Bruce Lee

Simplicity of expression rather than complexity of form. — Bruce Lee

It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential. — Bruce Lee

All knowledge leads to self-knowledge. — Bruce Lee

To me defeat in anything is merely temporary. Defeat simply tells me that something is wrong in my doing; it is a path leading to success and truth. — Bruce Lee

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential. — Bruce Lee

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! — Bruce Lee

To doubt is to think, and thought is the only thing in the universe whose existence cannot be denied, because to deny is to think. — Bruce Lee

In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup. — Bruce Lee

Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. I'll not willingly offend, nor be easily offended. — Bruce Lee

An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind. It is not satisfied with explanation, with conclusions. Nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion. — Bruce Lee

I am not teaching you anything. I just help you to explore yourself. — Bruce Lee

The change is from inner to outer. We start by dissolving our attitude not by altering outer conditions. — Bruce Lee

Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own. — Bruce Lee

Using no way as way. Having no limitation as your only limitation. — Bruce Lee

Here I am as a human being ... how can I express myself, totally and completely? — Bruce Lee

It is useless to try to stir the dirt Out of the muddy water, As it will become murkier. But leave it alone, And if it should be cleared; It will become clear by itself. — Bruce Lee

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

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

A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence. — Bruce Lee

You just wait. I'm going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world. — Bruce Lee

Be a practical dreamer backed by action. — Bruce Lee

To be what I term a 'quality' human being one has to be transparently real and have the courage to be what he is. — Bruce Lee

You will never get any more out of this life than you expect. — Bruce Lee

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

In order to realize our true self we must be willing to live without being dependent upon the opinion of others. — Bruce Lee