“Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.” — Bruce Lee
Here is my hand-crafted collection of the best Bruce Lee quotes of all time.
It’s organized by art, goals, growth, life, mistakes, positive thinking, personal development, power, self-awareness, simplicity, time, and truth.
You don’t have to be a martial artist to appreciate Bruce Lee’s quotes.
Aside from a martial artist, and actor, Bruce Lee was a philosopher.
His words of wisdom will make you think, and you’ll find he used precision in the way he phrases his ideas.
If you’re not already a Bruce Lee fan, you just might be by the time you’ve read his quotes.
He was a leader in the personal development arena, and a true continuous learner.
Enjoy …
Top 10 Bruce Lee Quotes
Here is a short-list of some of Bruce Lee’s most popular and insightful quotes:
- “Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.” — 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
- “Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.” — Bruce Lee
- “Empty your mind; be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water into 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
- “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.” — Bruce Lee
- “It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” — Bruce Lee
- “Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.” — Bruce Lee
- “To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.” — Bruce Lee
- “What is” is more important than ‘what should be.’ Too many people are looking at ‘what is’ from a position of thinking ‘what should be’.” — Bruce Lee
- “When one has reached maturity in the art, one will have a formless form. It is like ice dissolving in water. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, he can fit in with any style.” — Bruce Lee
“Be Water, My Friend”: The Greatest Bruce Lee Quote
Be water, my friend is one of Bruce Lee’s most famous philosophical quotes:
“Empty your mind.
Be formless, shapeless, like water.
You put water into a cup; it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle.
You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot.
Now water can flow, or it can crash.
Be water, my friend.”
— Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee Quotes on Art / Artistry
Bruce Lee quotes on art and artistry:
“Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul.”
— Bruce Lee
“Art is the way to the absolute and to the essence of human life.
The aim of art is not the one-sided promotion of spirit, soul and senses, but the opening of all human capacities – thought, feeling, will – to the life rhythm of the world of nature.
So will the voiceless voice be heard, and the self be brought into harmony with it.”
— Bruce Lee
“The second-hand artist blindly following his sensei or Sifu accepts his pattern. As a result, his action is and, more importantly, his thinking become mechanical. His responses become automatic, according to set patterns, making him narrow and limited.”
— Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee Quotes on Goals
Bruce Lee quotes on goals and goal setting:
“A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at.”
— Bruce Lee
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done. Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal.”
— Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee Quotes on Growth / Learning
Bruce Lee quotes on growth and learning:
“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”
— Bruce Lee
“As you think, so shall you become.”
— Bruce Lee
“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”
— Bruce Lee
“Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”
— Bruce Lee
“Empty your mind; be formless, shapeless – like water.
Now you put water into 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
“Ever since I was a child, I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth.
To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.”
— Bruce Lee
“I am not teaching you anything. I just help you to explore yourself.”
— Bruce Lee
“If you always put limit 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.”
— Bruce Lee
“If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you.”
— Bruce Lee
“In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup.”
— Bruce Lee
“Knowing is not enough, you must apply; willing is not enough, you must do.”
— Bruce Lee
“The knowledge and skills you have achieved are meant to be forgotten so you can float comfortably in emptiness, without obstruction.”
— Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee Quotes on Life
Bruce Lee quotes on life:
“Life is better lived than conceptualized. — This writing can be less demanding should I allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation.
Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that, and I’ve come to understand that life is best to be lived — not to be conceptualized. If you have to think, you still do not understand.”
— Bruce Lee
“Life is never stagnation. It is constant movement, un-rhythmic movement, as we as constant change.
Things live by moving and gain strength as they go.”
— Bruce Lee
“Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier.”
— Bruce Lee
“Life itself is your teacher, and you are in a state of constant learning.”
— Bruce Lee
“Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.”
— Bruce Lee
“Real living is living for others.”
— Bruce Lee
“Reality is apparent when one ceases to compare. — There is “what is” only when there is no comparison at all, and to live with what is, is to be peaceful.”
— Bruce Lee
“The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.”
— Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee Quotes on Mistakes
Bruce Lee quotes on mistakes:
“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”
— Bruce Lee
“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.”
— Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee Quotes on Positive Thinking
Bruce Lee quotes on positive thinking:
“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
“If you think a thing is impossible, you’ll make it impossible.”
— Bruce Lee
“To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”
— Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee Quotes on Personal Development
Bruce Lee quotes on personal development:
“Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.”
— Bruce Lee
“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”
— Bruce Lee
“I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged.
I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach.
I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation.
Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that, and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized.
I am happy because I am growing daily, and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies.
To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes.
It has added more to my bank of fortitude.”
— Bruce Lee
“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”
— Bruce Lee
“The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits.”
— Bruce Lee
“What you habitually think largely determines what you will ultimately become.”
— Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee Quotes on Power / Speed / Flexibility
Bruce Lee quotes on power, speed, and flexibility:
“A powerful athlete is not a strong athlete, but one who can exert his strength quickly.
Since power equals force times speed, if the athlete learns to make faster movements he increases his power, even though the contractile pulling strength of his muscles remains unchanged.
Thus, a smaller man who can swing faster may hit as hard or as far as the heavier man who swings slowly.”
— Bruce Lee
“Do not be tense, just be ready, not thinking but not dreaming, not being set but being flexible.
It is being “wholly” and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.”
— Bruce Lee
“Endurance is lost rapidly if one ceases to work at its maximum.”
— Bruce Lee
“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.”
— Bruce Lee
“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”
— Bruce Lee
“One should be in harmony with, not in opposition to, the strength and force of the opposition.
This means that one should do nothing that is not natural or spontaneous; the important thing is not to strain in any way.”
— Bruce Lee
“The athlete who is building muscles though weight training should be very sure to work adequately on speed and flexibility at the same time.
In combat, without the prior attributes, a strong man will be like the bull with its colossal strength futilely pursuing the matador or like a low-geared truck chasing a rabbit.”
— Bruce Lee
“The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”
— Bruce Lee
“When one has reached maturity in the art, one will have a formless form. It is like ice dissolving in water.
When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, he can fit in with any style.”
— Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee Quotes on Self-Awareness
Bruce Lee quotes on self-awareness:
“After all, all knowledge simply means self-knowledge.”
— Bruce Lee
“Fear comes from uncertainty; we can eliminate the fear within us when we know ourselves better.
As the great Sun Tzu said: “When you know yourself and your opponent, you will win every time.
When you know yourself but not your opponent, you will win one and lose one.
However, when you do not know yourself or your opponent, you will be imperiled every time.”
— Bruce Lee
“Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.”
— Bruce Lee
“The biggest adversary in our life is ourselves. We are what we are, in a sense, because of the dominating thoughts we allow to gather in our head.
All concepts of self-improvement, all actions and paths we take, relate solely to our abstract image of ourselves.
Life is limited only by how we really see ourselves and feel about our being.
A great deal of pure self-knowledge and inner understanding allows us to lay an all-important foundation for the structure of our life from which we can perceive and take the right avenues.”
— Bruce Lee
“To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.”
— Bruce Lee
“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”
— Bruce Lee
“Understanding comes about through feeling, from moment to moment in the mirror of relationship.”
— 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
Bruce Lee Quotes on Simplicity
Bruce Lee quotes on simplicity:
“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease.
Hack away at the unessential.”
— Bruce Lee
“Simplicity is the key to brilliance.”
— Bruce Lee
“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 spend or waste, and it is our decision what to do with it.
But once passed, it is gone forever.”
— 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
Bruce Lee Quotes on Time
Bruce Lee quotes on time and time management:
“Flow in the living moment. — We are always in a process of becoming and nothing is fixed.
Have no rigid system in you, and you’ll be flexible to change with the ever changing.
Open yourself and flow, my friend.
Flow in the total openness of the living moment.
If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Moving, be like water.
Still, be like a mirror.
Respond like an echo.”
— Bruce Lee
“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”
— Bruce Lee
“The moment is freedom. — I couldn’t live by a rigid schedule.
I try to live freely from moment to moment, letting things happen and adjusting to them.”
— Bruce Lee
“The timeless moment. — The “moment” has no yesterday or tomorrow.
It is not the result of thought and therefore has no time.”
— Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee Quotes on Truth
Bruce Lee quotes on truth:
“All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability.
The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”
— Bruce Lee
“Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing.
Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception.
To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.
Awareness has no frontier; it is giving of your whole being, without exclusion.”
— Bruce Lee
“It’s not what you give, it’s the way you give it. “
— Bruce Lee
“Know the difference between a catastrophe and an inconvenience. — To realize that it’s just an inconvenience, that it is not a catastrophe, but just an unpleasantness, is part of coming into your own, part of waking up.“
— Bruce Lee
“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. “
— Bruce Lee
“Obey the principles without being bound by them.”
— Bruce Lee
“Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory. “
— Bruce Lee
“Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against. “
— Bruce Lee
“Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick. “
— Bruce Lee
“’What is’ is more important than ‘what should be.’
Too many people are looking at ‘what is’ from a position of thinking ‘what should be’.”
— Bruce Lee
If you have a favorite Bruce Lee quote that I missed, please share it with me so that I can update my collection.
Best Books on Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee – Artist of Life, by Bruce Lee and John Little
Bruce Lee – Wisdom for the Way, by Bruce Lee
Tao of Jeet Kune Do, by Bruce Lee
The Art of Expressing the Human Body, by Bruce Lee and John Little
Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee’s Wisdom for Daily Living, by Bruce Lee and John
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