It is safe to say that almost anybody knows Bruce Lee, the iconic and incredibly skilled martial artist and actor. What is not so commonly known, however, is that Bruce Lee also enjoyed sharing many of the valuable insights he gained about life. As such, he transcended martial arts and had quite a philosophic and reflective side to him. Thanks to the multifacetedness of his character, he gained a significant amount of wisdom about so many different aspects of life. Therefore, Bruce Lee has not only become a legendary martial artist but also an insightful inspiration to those seeking to pursue their dreams with the very laser-like focus that he did. To celebrate the extraordinary insights he gained about life, we’ve created a collection of Bruce Lee quotes that are exceptionally powerful, motivating, and transformative. (You may also be interested in our selection of massively motivating quotes).
Widely considered as the most popular martial artist, Bruce Lee has become a truly iconic legend of the 20th century. Not only did he excel in the martial arts but also successfully established himself as an actor, film director, screenwriter, and philosopher.
“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one”
Bruce Lee
Despite his unexpected and tragic death, Bruce Lee’s legacy continues to live on. On the one hand, he created a martial art called Jeet Kune Do that is still taught to this present day. On the other hand, his unique perceptions about life and his philosophy are preserved by his writings.
Here are the most inspiring Bruce Lee quotes.
Let’s have a look at the most powerful Bruce Lee quotes.
120 Powerfully Transformative Bruce Lee Quotes
What is so powerful about Bruce Lee’s philosophy is the great level of focus and dedication it conveys. Not only do these powerful Bruce Lee quotes animate and inspire you to become ruthlessly dedicated in your pursuit of your goals but they will also motivate you to do whatever necessary. Even more so, reading these inspiring Bruce Lee quotes will encourage you to develop a laser-like focus that is needed for attaining mastery in all areas of life.
Interestingly enough, Bruce Lee’s philosophy is an interesting mixture of Confucian ways of thinking and the wisdom he gained from his rich experiences in life. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why his teachings so profoundly powerful.
Here are the wonderfully powerful Bruce Lee quotes:
1.
“Mistakes are always forgivable if one has the courage to admit them.”
Bruce Lee
2.
“Be happy, but never satisfied.”
Bruce Lee
3.
“Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life! Do not be concerned with escaping safely – lay your life before him!”
Bruce Lee
4.
“Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.”
Bruce Lee
5.
“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”
Bruce Lee
6.
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”
Bruce Lee
7.
“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.”
Bruce Lee
8.
“The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.”
Bruce Lee
9.
“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
10.
“If you don’t want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.”
Bruce Lee
11.
“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”
Bruce Lee
12.
“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.”
Bruce Lee
13.
“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.”
Bruce Lee
14.
“To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”
Bruce Lee
15.
“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”
Bruce Lee
16.
“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.”
Bruce Lee
17.
“For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.”
Bruce Lee
18.
“A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence.”
Bruce Lee
19.
“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”
Bruce Lee
20.
“Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail.”
Bruce Lee
21.
“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
22.
“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
23.
“A good fight should be like a small play, but played seriously.”
Bruce Lee
24.
“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.”
Bruce Lee
25.
“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”
Bruce Lee
26.
“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”
Bruce Lee
27.
“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.”
Bruce Lee
28.
“It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.”
Bruce Lee
29.
“The doubters said, ‘man cannot fly,’ the doers said, ‘maybe, but we’ll try,’ and finally soared in the morning glow while non-believers watched from below.”
Bruce Lee
30.
“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”
Bruce Lee
31.
“If you truly love life, don’t waste time because time is what life is made of.”
Bruce Lee
32.
“The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”
Bruce Lee
33.
“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”
Bruce Lee
34.
“Now I see that I will never find the light – unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel, consuming myself.”
Bruce Lee
35.
“The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits.”
Bruce Lee
36.
“Remember no man is really defeated unless he is discouraged.”
Bruce Lee
37.
“To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.”
Bruce Lee
38.
“It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”
Bruce Lee
39.
“You will never get any more out of life than you expect.”
Bruce Lee
40.
“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.”
Bruce Lee
41.
“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
42.
“There is no mystery about my style. My movements are simple, direct and non-classical. The extraordinary part of it lies in its simplicity. Every movement in Jeet Kune-Do is being so of itself. There is nothing artificial about it. I always believe that the easy way is the right way.”
Bruce Lee
43.
“If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow – you are not understanding yourself.”
Bruce Lee
44.
“Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.”
Bruce Lee
45.
“Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than you. Be not for or against.”
Bruce Lee
46.
“The world is full of people who are determined to be somebody or to give trouble. They want to get ahead, to stand out. Such ambition has no use for a gung fu man, who rejects all forms of self-assertiveness and competition”
Bruce Lee
47.
“Only the self-sufficient stand alone – most people follow the crowd and imitate.”
Bruce Lee
48.
“Practice makes perfect. After a long time of practicing, our work will become natural, skillful, swift, and steady.”
Bruce Lee
49.
“Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are the weeds that strange confidence.”
Bruce Lee
50.
“You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.”
Bruce Lee
51.
“Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.”
Bruce Lee
52.
“… good technique includes quick changes, great variety, and speed. It may be a system of reversals much like a concept of God and the Devil. In the speed of events, which one is really in charge?…to put the heart of martial arts in your own heart and have it be a part of you means total comprehension and the use of a free style. When you have that you will know that there are no limits.”
Bruce Lee
53.
“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
54.
“Using no way as a way, having no limitation as limitation.”
Bruce Lee
55.
“Preparation for tomorrow is hard work today.”
Bruce Lee
56.
“Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.”
Bruce Lee
57.
“The possession of anything begins in the mind.”
Bruce Lee
58.
“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
59.
“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
60.
“If you want to be immortal, live a life worth remembering”
Bruce Lee
61.
“The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.”
Bruce Lee
62.
“If I tell you I’m good, probably you will say I’m boasting. But if I tell you I’m not good, you’ll know I’m lying.”
Bruce Lee
63.
“Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.”
Bruce Lee
64.
“Satori – in the awakening from a dream. Awakening and self-realization and seeing into one’s own being – these are synonymous.”
Bruce Lee
65.
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.”
Bruce Lee
66.
“Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves. This difference between self-actualization and self-image actualization is very important. Most people live only for their image”
Bruce Lee
67.
“Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own”
Bruce Lee
68.
“Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you’re tired, go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.”
Bruce Lee
69.
“Linda and I aren’t one and one. We are two halves that make a whole – two halves fitted together are more efficient than either half would ever be alone!”
Bruce Lee
70.
“The stillness in stillness is not the real stillness; only when there is stillness in movement does the universal rhythm manifest.”
Bruce Lee
71.
“It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.”
Bruce Lee
72.
“The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.”
Bruce Lee
73.
“Pliability is life; rigidity is death, whether one speaks of man’s body, his mind, or his spirit.”
Bruce Lee
74.
“It doesn’t matter if you were born as legend or not. But what does matter is a legendary end. Think about it.”
Bruce Lee
75.
“Be self-aware, rather than a repetitious robot”
Bruce Lee
76.
“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.”
Bruce Lee
77.
“If there is a God, he is within. You don’t ask God to give you things, you depend on God for your inner theme.”
Bruce Lee
78.
“Voidness is that which stands right in the middle between this and that. The void is all-inclusive, having no opposite – there is nothing which it excludes or opposes. It is living void because all forms come out of it and whoever realizes the void is filled with life and power and the love of all beings.”
Bruce Lee
79.
“… 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. A man must constantly exceed his level.”
Bruce Lee
80.
“Real living is living for others.”
Bruce Lee
81.
“All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”
Bruce Lee
82.
“As you think, so shall you become.”
Bruce Lee
83.
“Relationship is understanding. It is a process of self-revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself – to be is to be related.”
Bruce Lee
84.
“Set patterns, incapable of adaptability, of pliability, only offer a better cage. Truth is outside of all patterns.”
Bruce Lee
85.
“Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.”
Bruce Lee
86.
“As long as I can remember, I feel I have had this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force which I hold in my hand.”
Bruce Lee
87.
“Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.”
Bruce Lee
88.
“A teacher is never a giver of truth; he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself.”
Bruce Lee
89.
“Any technique, however, worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it.”
Bruce Lee
90.
“In order to control myself, I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature.”
Bruce Lee
91.
“Learning is discovery, the discovery of the cause of our ignorance.”
Bruce Lee
92.
“The man who is really serious, with the urge to find out what truth is, has no style at all. He lives only in what is.”
Bruce Lee
93.
“… 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
94.
“Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.”
Bruce Lee
95.
“Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there.”
Bruce Lee
96.
“Everything you do, if not in a relaxed state will be done at a lesser level than you are proficient. Thus the tensed expert marksman will aim at a level less than his/her student.”
Bruce Lee
97.
“In Buddhism, there is no place for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and when you’re tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.”
Bruce Lee
98.
“The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a pattern of systems.”
Bruce Lee
99.
“Bring the mind into sharp focus and make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere. The mind must be emancipated from old habits, prejudices, restrictive thought processes and even ordinary thought itself.”
Bruce Lee
100.
“Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul.”
Bruce Lee
101.
“The more we value things, the less we value ourselves”
Bruce Lee
102.
“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
103.
“I am not afraid of a person who knows 10000 kicks. But I am afraid of a person who knows one kick but practices it for 10000 times.”
Bruce Lee
104.
“Experiencing is believing. A fat belly cannot believe that such a thing as hunger exists.”
Bruce Lee
105.
“Defeat is not defeat unless accepted as a reality – in your own mind.”
Bruce Lee
106.
“Those who are unaware they are walking in darkness will never seek the light.”
Bruce Lee
107.
“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.”
Bruce Lee
108.
“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
109.
“Obey the principles without being bound by them.”
Bruce Lee
110.
“The word ‘superstar’ is an illusion.”
Bruce Lee
111.
“In the middle of chaos lies opportunity”
Bruce Lee
112.
“If you think a thing is impossible, you’ll only make it impossible.”
Bruce Lee
113.
“Knowledge earns you power, character earns you respect.”
Bruce Lee
114.
“Because one does not want to be disturbed, to be made uncertain, he establishes a pattern of conduct, of thought, a pattern of relationship to man etc. Then he becomes a slave to the pattern and takes the pattern to be the real thing.”
Bruce Lee
115.
“Boards don’t hit back.”
Bruce Lee
116.
“All knowledge leads to self-knowledge.”
Bruce Lee
117.
“Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.”
Bruce Lee
118.
“Using no way as way. Having no limitation as your only limitation.”
Bruce Lee
119.
“Learning is discovering, uncovering what is there in us.”
Bruce Lee
120.
“When we discover, we are uncovering our own ability, our own eyes, in order to find our potential, to see what is going on, to discover how we can enlarge our lives, to find means at our disposal that will let us cope with a difficult situation. And all this, I maintain, is taking place in the here and now.”
Bruce Lee
Bonus
“Time means a lot to me because you see I am also a learner and am often lost in the joy of forever developing.”
Bruce Lee
I hope you enjoy this collection of powerful Bruce Lee quotes. What are your favorite quotes from the legendary karate master?
Stay victorious!
