Bruce Lee Quotes

201 Sourced Quotes

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

Bruce Lee
Balance your thoughts with action. — If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.

Bruce Lee
Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.

Bruce Lee
Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

Bruce Lee
Reality is being itself. — It is being itself, in becoming itself. Reality in its isness, the "isness" of a thing. Thus isness is the meaning — having freedom in its primary sense — not limited by attachments, confinements, partialization, complexities.

Bruce Lee
Humility forms the basis of honor, just as the low ground forms the foundation of a high elevation.

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
In Jeet Kune Do, it's not how much you have learned, but how much you have absorbed from what you have learned. It is not how much fixed knowledge you can accumulate, but what you can apply livingly that counts. 'Being' is more valued than "doing".

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

Bruce Lee
More and more I believe in the fact that you have two hands and two legs, and the thing is how to make good use of yourself - and that's about it.

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
A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come. When the opponent expands, I contract; and when he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, "I" do not hit, "it" hits all by itself.

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

Bruce Lee
Of course you're there. Death is always there. So why was I afraid? Your leap is swift. Your claws are sharp and merciful. What can you take from me which is not already yours?... Everything I have done until now has been fruitless. It has led to nothing. There was no other path except that it led to nothing — and 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
You must have complete determination. The worst opponent you can come across is one whose aim has become an obsession. For instance, if a man has decided that he is going to bite off your nose no matter what happens to him in the process, the chances are he will succeed in doing it. He may be severely beaten up, too, but that will not stop him from carrying out his objective. That is the real fighter.

Bruce Lee
Unfortunately, now in boxing people are only allowed to punch. In Judo, people are only allowed to throw. I do not despise these kinds of martial arts. What I mean is, we now find rigid forms which create differences among clans, and the world of martial art is shattered as a result.

Bruce Lee
To live is a constant process of relating, so come on out of that shell of isolation and conclusion, and relate DIRECTLY to what is being said. Bear in mind I seek neither your approval nor to influence you. So do not make up your mind as to "this is this" or "that is that." I will be more than satisfied if you begin to learn to investigate everything yourself from now on.

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
Knowledge, surely, is always of time, whereas knowing is not of time. Knowledge is from a source, from accumulation, from conclusion, while knowing is a movement.

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

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
Defeat is not defeat unless accepted as a reality-in your own mind.

Bruce Lee
I have always been a martial artist by choice, an actor by profession, but above all, am actualising myself to be an artist of life.

Bruce Lee
When there is freedom from mechanical conditioning, there is simplicity. The classical man is just a bundle of routine, ideas and tradition. If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow — you are not understanding yourself.

Bruce Lee
When we hold to the core, the opposite sides are the same if they are seen from the center of the moving circle. I do not experience; I am experience. I am not the subject of experience; I am that experience. I am awareness. Nothing else can be I or can exist.

Bruce Lee