James > James's Quotes

“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

“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one”
― Bruce Lee

“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.”
― Bruce Lee

“Be happy, but never satisfied.”
― Bruce Lee

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

“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”
― Bruce Lee

“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”
― Bruce Lee

“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

“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

“The doubters said,
"Man can not fly,"
The doers said,
"Maybe, but we'll try,"
And finally soared
In the morning glow
While non-believers
Watched from below.”
― Bruce Lee

“To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”
― Bruce Lee

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.”
― Bruce Lee

“The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.”
― Bruce Lee

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”
― 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, Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

“If you don't want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.”
― Bruce Lee

“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.”
― Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.”
― Bruce Lee

“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“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, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“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

“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

“Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.”
― Bruce Lee

“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”
― Bruce Lee

“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

“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successfull personality and duplicate it.”
― Bruce Lee

“For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.”
― Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

“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

“Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.”
― Bruce Lee