Kung Quotes & Sayings

I like the catholicity in time: our tradition is one of 2,000 years. — Hans Kung

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. — Bruce Lee

I fell in love with Bruce Lee after I watched his movies, and I wanted to become a kung-fu practicer, and I would like to be someone like Bruce Lee. That's why I learned kung-fu, and that's why I picked the wing chun style, because it's his style. That's why I decided to be an actor, to go into show business, because of him. — Stephen Chow

Does not simply contain God's word: it becomes God's word for anyone who submits trustfully and in faith to its testimony. — Hans Kung

First, you have stereotypes, and that will be the black drug dealer, the east Asian kung fu master, the Middle Eastern terrorist in 'True Lies.' Then you have stuff that takes place on culturally specific terrain, that engages with it, but actually subverts assumptions. 'Smashes' stereotypes. That's where I've come into the game. — Riz Ahmed

Her kung fu is that powerful. — Maureen Johnson

It is true that the mental aspect of kung-fu is the desired end; however, to achieve this end, technical skill must come first. — Bruce Lee

This was the plan: we would take a holy and sacred picture of the King of Rock 'n' Roll, Elvis Presley, to the very summit of the earth; once there, we would place it with sincere reverence amongst the chimerical shimmering palaces of ice and snow and then (accompanied by some weird Zen magic) we would light joss sticks, dance about making screechy kung-fu noises, get off our faces, and that would be it: Planet Earth saved. Simple. — Mark Manning

We got the best actors imaginable [in Kung Fu Panda]. If we could have made a wish list I don't think there would anyone else we would have added. Yeah, we've been blessed with exactly how amazing a cast of actors we have. To have someone like Bryan Cranston, who is not just an amazing actor, but who has such a range. — Jennifer Yuh Nelson

While combat efficiency is a primary function of Shaolin Kung Fu, a more immediate and useful benefit in our law-abiding society is attaining radiant health and vitality. — Wong Kiew Kit

I fight like Bruce Lee. I train in his style of kung fu, wing chun. It's all about fighting with controlled power, so you learn to punch correctly. — Lucy Griffiths

No matter where he went in the City, there was an odoriferous mix of food and vehicles, like the alchemic concoctions of some mad gourmet mechanic: Kung Pao Saab Turbo, Buick Skylark Carbonara, Sweet-and-Sour Metro Bus, Honda Bolognese with Burning Clutch Sauce. — Christopher Moore

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
[Kung Fu Monkey
Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009] — John Rogers

I was involved in a web cartoon of Kung Fu with WB a few years back. — David Carradine

When I was a kid, I would make kung fu movies with the kids in the neighborhood, and I would be the guy behind the camera directing everybody, but they were all very silly little shorts and comedy bits. — Dan Fogler

Now climb, young grasshopper, so your Kung Fu won't be weak. — Ilona Andrews

How could everything go so wrong so fast? For goodness' sake, she was only looking for a few plants. But instead, she'd found a whole village of mind-controlled slaves and a whole army of acrobatic kung fu vampires. — Kerrelyn Sparks

Growing up as a kid, I wanted to be a ninja. In martial arts, even though I did Chinese kung fu, I always wanted to be this secret samurai or a ninja. There's something about ninjas that was very appealing to me as a kid. So of course, I was climbing a lot of trees and other things and getting up to mischief - good mischief. — Ray Park

I want to make a good, solid kung fu movie. — Keanu Reeves

Medical knowledge and technical savvy are biodegradable. The sort of medicine that was practiced in Boston or New York or Atlanta fifty years ago would be as strange to a medical student or intern today as the ceremonial dance of a !Kung San tribe would seem to a rock festival audience in Hackensack. — Lewis Thomas

Men don't ask other men if they're getting home OK, they just assume that beneath the frail, weak exterior lurks a muscle-building kung fu master fearless of ever being mugged. — Kate Griffin

I'm half Asian, so people immediately go, "Oh, you do kung fu," like that's what we do. We wake up, we do kung fu, we brush our teeth. It's just assumed that you're not working your ass off to make this believable and make this something great, and we absolutely are. — Maggie Q

My whole life I've harbored a resentment toward those who could ride no-handed. To this day, I can't even sit on an exercise bike without clinging to the handlebars with a serious G.I.-Joe- kung-fu grip. Every time I see someone on the road, all smug and well-balanced, using their cell phone and gesturing while they talk and ride, I secretly want to bash them with my car door. It's — Jen Lancaster

Abby Von Normal - And I'm like, Don't change the subject, Kung Pao, what I want to know is if you're ready to spend some up-close and personal time with ninety pounds of barbarian woman-flesh! Sorry, I don't know how much that is in kilos. — Christopher Moore

The hidden village was something we found when we went to research in China we climbed a mountain in the Sichuan province where the panda sanctuary is based, and we climbed to this beautiful, mist-covered, almost primordial place and when we turned these corners these moss covered old buildings would come into view, revealing themselves and it was so beautiful and so unlike anything we'd seen that we literally took those moments and put them into the film [Kung Fu Panda 3]. — Jennifer Yuh Nelson

All historical experience demonstrates the following: Our earth cannot be changed unless in the not too distant future an alteration in the consciousness of individuals is achieved. — Hans Kung

Okay. I'm not a white male. At least, not predominantly so. And as I mentioned before, I'm in an environment right now where race is really important. See, Chinese men are not that physically intimidating. We're not that tall. We're not that built. We have exactly one thing going for us in a fight - that our opponent recognizes that there's a possibility, no matter how remote, that we might know kung-fu. — Phillip Andrew Bennett Low

For my money, I don't think there's been a better comedy than 'Kung Fu Hustle' in a lot of years. That movie just knocked me over. — Adam McKay

I throw it all in there, Kung Fu, blaxploitation, horror. — Keenen Ivory Wayans

The Epistle to the Romans is an extremely important synthesis of the whole theology of St. Paul. — Hans Kung

Kung fu lives in everything we do. It lives in how we put on a jacket and how we take off a jacket. It lives in how we treat people. Everything is kung fu. — Jackie Chan

That means that every human being - without distinction of sex, age, race, skin color, language, religion, political view, or national or social origin - possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity. — Hans Kung

People would come to me and say, 'Jet, your Kung Fu is pretty good, do you want to be an action star when you grow up?' At 17, I was given the script and I went to make the movie. — Jet Li

Hurdling is like Kung-fu. Everyone comes from a different school. And everybody says 'my Kung-fu is better than your Kung-fu.' You have to find the technique that best fits your body size. — Larry Shipp

All American politicians are bought and paid for by American lobbyists. We no longer have representative government here. We breed monsters like Kissinger and Nixon and Ronnie Reagan. Our senate and congress are run by pay-offs and special interest money. And the fun part is that most Americans are asleep about it. Give 'em a new SUV and a good J-Lo or Tom Cruise kung-fu flick and a few jolly abortion clinic bombing news clips on the six o'clock news and everybody seems to stay content. Wasn't it Churchill that said any society gets exactly the government it deserves? — Dan Fante

I think me and Kristen Bell are going to start a band. It's called Kung-Fu Professor. — Clark Duke

In the event that my illness worsens, I want to have a guarantee that I can die in a dignified manner. Nowhere in the bible does it say that a person has to stick it out to the decreed end. No one tells us what "decreed" means. — Hans Kung

A Church which abandons the truth abandons itself. — Hans Kung

In anthropology, things were mostly Stone Age: Yanomamo, Mbuti, !Kung - Susan once had it in her mind to learn how it had been before it all got fucked up, but soon tossed the notion, concluding that things have never been not fucked up. [-'Jonah Sees Ghosts'] — Mark J. Sullivan III

I need something to do when I'm not working, or I crawl up the walls. So I've just taken up kung fu. I was looking for some kind of calming, relaxing activity. I tried yoga, but it wasn't really me. — Ian Hart

Even while modeling, I was still practicing kung fu and boxing as sports. — Djimon Hounsou

Well we've got to do a lot of kung fu choreography, which was really cool. Like I have, you know, like the big hammer that I use, kind of like a staff in a sense. So I get to use that like a really cool weapon. Kung fu style. And it's just really fun to get to learn that and execute it in a way that looks cool on screen. It just feels really rewarding. — Mary Elizabeth Winstead

I don't mind doing action or kung fu, but I'm also really happy to do something dramatic. I'd like to show that a Chinese girl doesn't have to do crazy martial arts to get the part. — Zhu Zhu

My first job. Ah, the memories. I'm hired for minimum wage as the cleaner at an ice cream parlor and quickly realize that the big boss's methods duplicate effort. I do it my way, finish in one hour instead of eight, and spend the rest of the time reading kung-fu magazines and practicing karate kicks outside. I am fired in a record three days, left with the parting comment, "Maybe someday you'll understand the value of hard work." It seems I still don't. — Timothy Ferriss

I'm not a type-B personality who knows I have a cancer growing inside of me and can live with the knowledge. I go into a kung-fu attack position when I go through the door of a hospital. — Norman Schwarzkopf

In that movie, Mr Miyagi has Daniel doing all these mundane tasks like painting the fence and waxing the car, then later Daniel does the same moves and finds out it's kung fu. You have me doing all of these fighting moves ... If I find out later that what you're actually doing is teaching me how to paint fences and wax cars, I'm not paying you, you understand? - Scapegrace — Derek Landy

When you see all of the pandas in this movie [Kung Fu Panda 3], they are rolling because that is exactly what they do. Not only were we able to watch the pandas play but we had free range to walk around and get a feel for the architecture and get a sense of where they lived ,so there's a lot of firsthand exploration. — Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Kung fu was made so the monks could train their bodies and move their bodies with strength, so they could be physical enough to gain mental enlightenment. Before that, they kept falling asleep when [masters] were trying to teach them. — RZA

Well I think everything up to this point that I've been exposed to in my life has had an influence on me in some way, shape, or form even if I'm not conscious of it. So I definitely think that my studies in wu-shu, kung-fu, karate, kenpo, taikwando, all of that stuff certainly has an affect. I don't think I follow any discipline traditionally. — Criss Angel

We did two films [Kung Fu Panda], because the first two films were so embraced by the Chinese audiences we wanted to make something we could push further and since this is a co-production, it seemed like the perfect time to create something that felt native to Chinese audiences. — Jennifer Yuh Nelson

If you plant rice, you will grow rice.
If you plant fear, you will grow fear. — Kung Fu

We need to get out," I said. My voice sounded raw to me. "Trouble coming."
"No," said a beautiful Sidhe baritone. "Trouble is here."
They appeared from behind their veils, one by one, with so much melodrama that I was mildly surprised that they hadn't each struck some kind of kung fu pose. — Jim Butcher

I've always been passionate about these different (film) genres. Kung fu movies, samurai movies, Japanese movies, all this kind of stuff, and my love for it, and just trying to present it in a way that other people can love it as much as I do. — Quentin Tarantino

Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung fu film. — Werner Herzog

Since well before the Kung's engine noise first penetrated the forest, a conversation of sorts has been unfolding in this lonesome hollow. It is not a language like Russian or Chinese but it is a language nonetheless, and it is older than the forest. The crows speak it; the dog speaks it; the tiger speaks it, and so do the men
some more fluently than others. — John Vaillant

Pre-'Tokyo Drift,' I was like: 'Am I gonna play Yakuza #1 and Chinese Waiter #2 for the rest of my life? Is America even ready for an Asian face that speaks English, that doesn't do Kung Fu?' — Sung Kang

Historical arguments; traditional apologetics breaks down here. Since man is here dealing with God and this by definition means with the invisible, impalpable, uncontrollable, only one attitude is appropriate and required : believing trust, trusting faith. — Hans Kung

Kung saan ka nadapa doon ka babangon." Literally it meant 'you rise where you fall'. Symbolically it meant bloodied, beat or dying you let your enemy see you stand. — L C Clark

However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, such a Declaration becomes superfluous; an ethic is more than rights. — Hans Kung

I was enough of an acrobat and a gymnast and a dancer and everything else so that I could handle the kung fu, because it's just choreography. — David Carradine

We should think about whether canonizations, which are an invention of the Middle Ages, still make sense today. — Hans Kung

The Master said, 'Subsidiarity.' Tsze-Kung said, 'What the hell are you talking about? — Confucius

We are convinced of the fundamental unity of the human family. — Hans Kung

Actually, for me, I really love to do action movie. You know, most people, they know, they thought that I am a martial artist. I don't know why, but I love to do kung fu movie, you know? — Li Bingbing

One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly wizened granny was going for, but instead of twisting it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head - just a jog, barely perceptible really - it might have been a tic, but it was the most eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying: O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you; my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a society that outlawed even being Chinese; I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion; I have birthed babies and washed the dead; I am history and suffering and wisdom; I am a Buddha and a dragon; so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it. — Christopher Moore

We got to jump on, like, trampolines, learn flips, learn karate, kung fu, Hong Kong street fighting. — Jaime King

In the last resort, a love of God without love of humanity is no love at all. — Hans Kung

Science may have come a long way, but as far as religion is concerned, we are first cousins to the !Kung tribesmen of the Kalahari Desert. Except for the garments, their deep religious trances might just as well be happening at a revival meeting or in the congregation of a fundamentalist TV preacher ... As we move further from the life of ignorance and superstition in which religion has its roots, we seem to need it more and more ... Why has religion become a force just when we'd have thought it would be losing ground to secularism? — Phil Donahue

I train my muscles, and I do a lot of stretching, and try to kick higher. But for me, practicing kung-fu is a way to relax myself. — Stephen Chow

I was also an only child and my father really wanted a son - he's from that generation - it was always about kung-fu theater on Sundays and boxing games on the weekend. — Milla Jovovich

The rural Chinese in Henan Province mixed alcohol and business like you wouldn't believe. Perhaps as a result, they also had a charming nationalistic blind spot: they honestly believed they could out-drink everyone else on the planet. As an Irish-American who outweighed them by 50 pounds, I had come to find this both amusing and useful. — Matthew Polly

One of my favorite things about the Kung Fu Panda 3 is the look of it. We never go for realism. I think a lot of time when people go for 3D that's the mistake. Because we're never going for full realism - for computer generated live action films like Avatar the goal is realism, to make the audience feel like they are seeing something that is real. Lord of the Rings had character design and environments to make it look real, whereas we aren't going for that, we are going for something that is theatrically, viscerally, and emotionally real. — Jennifer Yuh Nelson

But I have to add - and this answers your other question - this catholicity in time and in space is only meaningful for me if there is, at the same time, a concentration on the Gospel. — Hans Kung

I don't cling to earthly life because I believe in eternal life. That's the big distinction between my point of view and a purely secular position. — Hans Kung

The mass media stereotype of an MPD patient is a woman harboring an internal collection of delightfully different people ranging from wide-eyed little kids to kung fu masters and nuclear physicists. Skeptics tend to focus concretely on the impossibility of there being 10 or 20 or 100 separate people inside that woman's body (e.g., Sarbin, 1995). By and large, this stereotype will not go away.

Alter personalities are real. They do exist - not as separate, individuals, but as discrete dissociative states of consciousness. When considered from this perspective, they are not nearly so amazing to behold or so difficult to accept. A fair reading of the MPD literature shows that authorities have long subscribed to this thesis: "Only when taken together can all of the personality states be considered a whole personality" (Coons, 1984, p. 53). Paradoxically, it is the critics who implicitly accept the view that the alter personalities are separate people. — Frank W. Putnam

Religion often is misused for purely power-political goals, including war. — Hans Kung

I am from the Kilburn branch of the Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation," said Hifan proudly.
Irie inhaled.
Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation," repeated Millat, impressed. "That's a wicked name. It's got a wicked kung-fu arse sound to it."
Irie frowned. "KEVIN?"
We are aware," said Hifan solemnly, pointing to the spot underneath the cupped flame where the initials were minutely embroidered, "that we have an acronym problem. — Zadie Smith

In my research, I learned that the Boxers' kung fu wasn't all that formalized. The vast majority of them didn't belong to some age-old martial arts tradition. They were basically poor, starving teenagers doing the best they could to figure out how to fight, relying more on their mystical beliefs than formal training. — Gene Luen Yang

We have those new environments [during Kung Fu Panda 3] that give a scale to the movie, that are the spirit realm and the panda village. The spirit realm, having no gravity, having this massive space, allowed us to do huge action shots. All that we just couldn't do before. We just couldn't get the scale, we'd have to cheat them. This time we found ourselves more free. — Jennifer Yuh Nelson

The only thing that matters is what you do now, here. — Arthur M. Jolly

I did kung fu up until two weeks before Benjamin was born, and yoga three days a week. I think a lot of people get pregnant and decide they can turn into garbage disposals. I was mindful about what I ate, and I gained only 30 pounds. — Gisele Bundchen

According to tradition, the originator of Taoism, Lao-tzu, was an older contemporary of Kung Fu-tzu, or Confucius, who died in 479 B.C.1 Lao-tzu is said to have been the author of the Tao Te Ching, a short book of aphorisms, setting forth the principles of the Tao and its power or virtue (Te e). But traditional Chinese philosophy ascribes both Taoism and Confucianism to a still earlier source, to a work which lies at the very foundation of Chinese thought and culture, dating anywhere from 3000 to 1200 B.C. This is the I Ching, or Book of Changes. — Alan W. Watts

Your puny worm god weapons are useless against my superior Christmas Kung Fu. — Christopher Moore

I remember the Curia said, that's up to the American bishops, not up to Rome. — Hans Kung

When I was a kid, I loved watching kung fu movies - in San Francisco, we had 'Kung Fu Theater' on TV on Saturdays, and they'd air old Shaw Brothers movies with English dubbing, things like that. — Daniel Wu

I did kung fu from when I was nine to 13. You have to be really careful but you want to be able to make it look eventually as though it's just a part of you. So, you train over and over and over again. — Channing Tatum

At least we have the record, Henry thought. A reminder of a place where people didn't seem to care what you looked like, where you were born, or where your family was from. When the music played, it didn't seem to make one lick of difference if your last was Abernathy or Anjoy, Kung or Kobayashi. — Jamie Ford

He tried not to love that she could recite scenes from Ghostbusters, that she liked kung fu movies and could name all of the original X-Men - because those seemed like reasons a guy would fall for a girl in a Kevin Smith movie. — Rainbow Rowell

Prior to 'Tokyo Drift,' the iconic perception of Asians in Hollywood films has been either the Kung Fu guy, the Yakuza guy or some technical genius. It used to be such a joke, to be laughed at rather than with. — Sung Kang

Jelle, if you really love Guji, you'd be willing to let him go and allow him to be happy with the woman he loves. Walang problema kung nais mong ipaglaban ang feelings mo pero dapat alam mo rin kung paano sumuko lalo na kung alam mong talo ka na. — Marione Ashley

I think we had to push forward to make sure it was different, do something that we had never done before and yet still have the consistency to stay in the same world. This was our chance to do all the things we didn't get a chance to do before. We've been working on these movies [Kung Fu Panda] for twelve years and we have to keep things exciting for us in order for us to devote that many years of our lives to do this. — Jennifer Yuh Nelson

As a matter of fact, you have deficiencies in all religions, but you have truth in all religions. — Hans Kung

My big fight is not in the movie and I don't understand that decision but I know he's right about it, whatever it is. Quentin did not hire me because I'm a kung fu expert; he hired me because he liked to listen to me talk. — David Carradine

I'm a huge fan of 'Kung Fu Panda.' I honestly think that Jack Black's voice work in 'Kung Fu Panda' is the best voice work that's ever been done. He's so funny, and it's such an endearing character. It really is great. — John Requa

Second, we also got a more authentic liturgy of the people of God, in the vernacular language. — Hans Kung

I never fought, I never learned kung fu or boxing, I never went into these sportif competitions. I wouldn't cross the ocean. I think it's ridiculous to take such risk. But look, people love to do that. But I was not afraid of doing things I wished to do. I did not think that woman would be restrained. I never saw that, especially not in filmmaking, where you don't have to be strong. — Agnes Varda

There was one new metallic monstrosity stacked in one corner that she hadn't seen the last time she was a visitor to his strange chamber, it appeared to be a mass of hard drives all fused together, but they looked too sophisticated to be merely hard drives.
"What on earth is that?"
"That's my Kung Fu," he said proudly, patting the top of the futuristic-looking stack.
"Is that what you wanted to show me?"
"No, but it's impressive, isn't it?"
"If you say so."
Steves sighed and shook his head, so few people could appreciate the intellectual complexity of an almost untraceable hacking device. — E.A. Bucchianeri

I eat kung pao chicken like it's going out of style, but I'm pretty sure I don't have an Asian cell in my body. I love Toni Morrison novels although I'm not black. I'm straight and I'm happily married. The reason I work here is because I think you deserve that, too. — Jodi Picoult

To do good, to love justice, to grant that all men had an equal right to a pleasant life, these things Kung Chen believed in, and believing, he did all he could to perform his belief. — Pearl S. Buck

Support your partner in their interests. You never know when batting practice, kung fu movie moves, or even a poker night might come in handy during a zombie infestation. — Jesse Petersen