The Philosophy of Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee is, perhaps, the most famous of all Hong Kong stars. The most influential martial artist of the modern age, he became a huge star during the Kung-Fu film boom of the 1970s, before his tragically early death in 1973. He was also a great philosopher and poet, incredibly well read and thoughtful. Here are some of his most profound philosophical quotes, illustrating his unique take on the spiritual, the physical, the emotional and the mental.
I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine.
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.
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.
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 had practiced one kick 10,000 times.
Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.
Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
Be happy, but never satisfied.
Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.