Bruce Lee Quotes Proverbs, and Aphorisms
- November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973
- Hong Kong-American
- Martial Artist, Actor, Director, Philosopher, Founder of Jeet Kune Do
Bruce Lee was a Hong Kong-American martial artist, actor, and filmmaker who became a global icon for his dynamic fighting style, philosophical insight, and cultural impact. He founded Jeet Kune Do, a martial arts philosophy that emphasized adaptability, efficiency, and self-expression, breaking away from rigid traditional styles. Through films like Enter the Dragon and The Way of the Dragon, Lee challenged Asian stereotypes in Hollywood and introduced martial arts to a worldwide audience. His charisma, discipline, and fusion of Eastern and Western thinking made him a symbol of empowerment, self-mastery, and cross-cultural identity. Though he died young at 32, his legacy endures in martial arts, film, and global pop culture.
- “It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”
- “To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”
- “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.”
- “The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.”
- “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”
- “A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”
- “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.”
- “Real living is living for others.”
- “Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.”
- “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.”
- “All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”
- “I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”
- “Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.”
- “Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.”
- “To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”
- “Obey the principles without being bound by them.”
- “Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.”
- “As you think, so shall you become.”
- “Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”
- “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.”
- “If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”
- “A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”
- “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”
- “The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”
- “Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.”
- “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.”
- “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”
- “A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”
- “The possession of anything begins in the mind.”
- “You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.”