Bruce Lee Quotes

“one hand, there are those who openly dismiss the philosophical aspect”
― Bruce Thomas, Bruce Lee: Beyond the Limits

“are those who make ridiculous ‘super-hero’ style biopics about him that serve only to mock his real achievements. There are others who meticulously catalogue his shopping lists — or postcards that say no more than, ‘See you next weekend, George’ — as if they’re loaded with hidden gems. And where naïve fans used to sit around a Ouija board trying to contact Bruce, the Indian branch of ‘The Master Lee Fan Club’ now deifies him as a fully-fledged messiah — so fulfilling Bruce’s own prophecy that his art would one day become dogmatized and suffer the same fate as fundamentalist religions. Styles are parts dissected from the whole, divisive by nature, and keep men apart. When Bruce Lee said that styles keep men apart, he wasn’t only referring to various systems of martial art. If you apply it to everything in life, it’s equally relevant. ‘Style’ can just as easily apply to a lifestyle. Just as it can apply to any way of fighting, so it applies to”
― Bruce Thomas, Bruce Lee: Beyond the Limits

“Hong Kong Cha-Cha Champion of 1957. And just as he could pick up dance steps after being shown them only once, so he had an instant understanding of any martial art he encountered — whether Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Filipino — or Western techniques of fencing or boxing. In parallel with his acting career, Bruce Lee was also the catalyst for the hybridization of martial art styles — a unique approach to the subject that eventually led to the ‘mixed martial art’ and ‘ultimate fighting’ of today. Bruce’s intentions have often been misunderstood by some in the martial arts community, who believe he was accumulating every possible technique he could, so as to create a total armoury. But for Bruce, it was the shared principles behind all the various techniques that were far more important than acquiring a vast catalogue of moves. I do not fear the man who has practiced ten-thousand kicks once. But I fear the man who has practiced one kick ten-thousand times. In his view, a martial artist shouldn’t set out to compile an encyclopedia of styles any more than a musician should.  After all, would the ultimate musician be one who learned every jazz lick he could, every blues lick, every classical piece, and pop tune — along with the folk music of Kazakhstan — which he then tried to cobble together into one unholy racket?”
― Bruce Thomas, Bruce Lee: Beyond the Limits