The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.

Remember no man is really defeated unless he is discouraged.

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

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

Experiencing is believing. – A fat belly cannot believe that such a thing as hunger exists.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.

Fear comes from uncertainty; we can eliminate the fear within us when we know ourselves better.

The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.

A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.

Preparation for tomorrow is hard work today.

Not being tense but ready.
Not thinking but not dreaming.
Not being set but flexible.
Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement.
It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.

For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.

In the middle of chaos lies opportunity.

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

I wish neither to possess nor to be possessed. I no longer covet ‘paradise’. More important, I no longer fear ‘hell’.

The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning but I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it, until this moment.

Now I see that I will never find the light unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel, consuming myself.

A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence.

Self-knowledge involves relationship. To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person. Relationship is a process of self-evaluation and self-revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself – to be is to be related.

In order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature.

As you think, so shall you become.

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.

If you don’t want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.

What you habitually think largely determines what you will ultimately become.

Simplicity is the key to brilliance.

The more we value things, the less we value our selves. — We should devote ourselves to being self-sufficient and must not depend upon the external rating by others for our happiness. So it is true that the more we value things, the less we value our self. The more we depend upon others for esteem, the less we are self-sufficient.

Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are the weeds that strangle confidence.

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

Real living is living for others.

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.

The possession of anything begins in the mind.

To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.

It is not daily increase but daily decrease, hack away the unessential. The closer to the source, the less wastage there is.

Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.

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

The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or defeat. Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment.

If you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.

There is another bit of Chinese philosophy that has a bearing on problems common to all human kind. We say, ‘The oak tree is mighty, yet it will be destroyed by a mighty wind because it resists the elements; the bamboo bends with the wind, and by bending, survives.’

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.

A learned man once went to visit a Zen teacher to inquire about Zen. As the Zen teacher talked, the learned man frequently interrupted to express his own opinion about this or that. Finally, the Zen teacher stopped talking and began to serve tea to the learned man. He poured the cup full, then kept pouring until the cup overflowed.
‘Stop,’ said the learned man. ‘The cup is full, no more can be poured in.’
‘Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions,’ replied the Zen teacher. ‘If you do not first empty your cup, how can you taste my cup of tea?’

Who is there that can make muddy water clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will become clear of itself. Who is there that can secure a state of absolute repose? But keep calm and let time go on, and the state of repose will gradually arrest.

To me, racial barriers do not exist in reality. If I say that ‘everyone under the sun is a member of a universal family,’ you may think that I am bluffing and being idealistic. But if anyone still believes in racial differences, I think he is too backward and narrow in his perspective. Perhaps he still does not understand man’s equality and love.

Oftentimes people come up to me and ask, ‘Bruce, are you really that good?’ I say, ‘Well, if I tell you I’m good, probably you will say I’m boasting; but if I tell you I’m no good, you’ll know I’m lying.’ I have the absolute confidence not to be number two, but then I have enough sense also to realize that there can be no number one.

The method for health promotion is based on water, as flowing water never grows stale. The idea is not to overdevelop or to overexert, but to normalize the function of the body.

An intelligent mind is one which is constantly learning, never concluding — styles and patterns have come to conclusion, therefore they [have] ceased to be intelligent.

There was a fine butcher who used the same knife year after year, yet it never lost its delicate, precise edge. After a lifetime of service, it was still as useful and effective as when it was new. When asked how he had preserved his knife’s fine edge, he said: ‘I follow the line of the hard bone. I do not attempt to cut it, nor to smash it, nor to contend with it in any way. That would only destroy my knife.’ In daily living, one must follow the course of the barrier. To try to assail it will only destroy the instrument. And no matter what some people will say, barriers are not the experience of any one person, or any one group of persons. They are the universal experience.

Most people can talk without listening. Very few can listen without talking.

The superior man lets himself be guided; he does not go ahead blindly, but learns from the situation what is demanded of him and then follows.

…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.

When I look around, I always learn something, and that is to be always yourself. And to express yourself. To have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it, which seems to me to be the prevalent thing happening in Hong Kong. Like they always copy mannerisms, but they’ll never start from the very root of his being, which is ‘how can I be me?’

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. Once you accept, you are free to flow and to harmonize. Fluidity is the way to an empty mind. You must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying.

You know what I want to think of myself? As a human being. Because, I mean I don’t want to be like “As Confucius say,” but under the sky, under the heavens there is but one family. It just so happens man that people are different.

Nothingness means “no thingness” — there is only process, happening. When we accept and enter this nothingness, the void, then the desert starts to bloom.

To spend time is to pass it in a specified manner. To waste time is to expend it thoughtlessly or carelessly. We all have time to either spend or waste and it is our decision what to do with it. But once passed, it is gone forever.

You cannot force the Now. – But can you neither 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.

If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done. Make at least one definite move daily toward you goal.

It is the life of perfection which seems to be incomplete, and of fullness which seems to be empty.

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.

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

Be happy, but never satisfied.

Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.

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

Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier.

Do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

Those who are unaware they are walking in darkness will never seek the light.

You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.

Defeat is a state of mind; No one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.

The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.

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

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.