“Be like water making its way through crack.
Do not be assertive but adjust to the object and you shall find a way round it or through it.
If nothing within you stays rigid outward thigs will disclose themselves.
Moving be like water.
Still be like a mirror.
Respond like an echo.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle 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
“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
“Always be yourself and have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and try to duplicate it.”
―
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
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing you will never get it done”
―
Bruce Lee
“Don't think. FEEL. It's like a finger pointing at the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all of the heavenly glory.”
―
Bruce Lee
“To Bruce Lee, philosophy was not the professional playground of academics, but every human being’s gateway to the greatest adventure of the human spirit. It illuminated the frontiers of human possibility and obliterated the shadows of doubt and insecurity. Unlike others, content to follow, Bruce Lee insisted upon charting his own course toward truth, and he encouraged those who wished to share his insights to do likewise. While Lee was a champion of individual rights and individual development, both of which stress the sovereignty of the individual as an end in himself, he also spoke to something deeper—the commonality of all human beings and the removal of such artificial barriers to true brotherhood as nationality, ethnicity, and class structure, so that human beings could live together peaceably as independent equals. Bruce Lee rejected blind obedience to”
―
Bruce Lee
“Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. Be water, my friend.”
―
Bruce Lee
“Set patterns, incapable of adaptability, of pliability, only offer a better cage. Truth is outside of all patterns.”
―
Bruce Lee
“The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.”
―
Bruce Lee
“It is not a shame to be knocked down by other people. The important thing is to ask when you're being knocked down, 'Why am I being knocked down?' If a person can reflect in this way, then there is hope for this person.”
―
Bruce Lee
“But neither can you condemn nor justify and yet be extraordinarily alive as you walk on.
You can never invite the wind but you must leave the window open.”
―
Bruce Lee