20 Bruce Lee Quotes on Freedom

Bruce Lee quotes on freedom

11. 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.

12. Jeet Kune Do rejects all restrictions imposed by form and formality and emphasizes the clever use of the mind and body to defend and attack.

26. Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier.

36. To realize freedom the mind has to learn to look at life, which is a vast movement, without the bondage of time, for freedom lies beyond the field of consciousness - care for watching, but don't stop and interpret 'I am free,' then you're living in a memory of something that has gone before.

45. 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.

53. Reality is being itself. - It is being itself, in becoming itself. Reality in its isness, the 'isness' of a thing. Thus isness is the meaning - having freedom in its primary sense - not limited by attachments, confinements, partialization, complexities.

54. A self-willed man obeys a different law, the one law I, too, hold absolutely sacred - the human law in himself, his own individual will.

61. Like everyone else you want to learn the way to win. But never to accept the way to lose. To accept defeat - to learn to die - is to be liberated from it. Once you accept, you are free to flow and to harmonize. Fluidity is the way to an empty mind. You must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying.

63. Liberate yourself from concepts and see the truth with your own eyes. - It exists HERE and NOW; it requires only one thing to see it: openness, freedom - the freedom to be open and not tethered by any ideas, concepts, etc. ... When our mind is tranquil, there will be an occasional pause to its feverish activities, there will be a let-go, and it is only then in the interval between two thoughts that a flash of UNDERSTANDING - understanding, which is not thought - can take place.

80. A martial artist who drills exclusively to a set pattern of combat is losing his freedom. He is actually becoming a slave to a choice pattern and feels that the pattern is the real thing. It leads to stagnation because the way of combat is never based on personal choice and fancies, but constantly changes from moment to moment, and the disappointed combatant will soon find out that his 'choice routine' lacks pliability. There must be a 'being' instead of a 'doing' in training. One must be free. Instead of complexity of form, there should be simplicity of expression.

86. Art is the expression of the self. The more complicated and restricted the method, the less the opportunity for expression of one's original sense of freedom. Though they play an important role in the early stage, the techniques should not be too mechanical, complex or restrictive. If we cling blindly to them, we shall eventually become bound by their limitations. Remember, you are expressing the techniques and not doing the techniques. If somebody attacks you, your response is not Technique No.1, Stance No. 2, Section 4, Paragraph 5. Instead you simply move in like sound and echo, without any deliberation. It is as though when I call you, you answer me, or when I throw you something, you catch it. It's as simple as that - no fuss, no mess. In other words, when someone grabs you, punch him. To me a lot of this fancy stuff is not functional.

98. I have not invented a 'new style,' composite, modified or otherwise that is set within distinct form as apart from 'this' method or 'that' method. On the contrary, I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds. Remember that Jeet Kune Do is merely a name used, a mirror in which to see 'ourselves'. . . Jeet Kune Do is not an organized institution that one can be a member of. Either you understand or you don't, and that is that.

120. Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it. LEARN, MASTER AND ACHIEVE!!!

121. Let the spirit out - Discard all thoughts of reward, all hopes of praise and fears of blame, all awareness of one's bodily self. And, finally closing the avenues of sense perception, let the spirit out, as it will.

135. Because of styles, people are separated. They are not united together because styles became laws. But the original founder of the style started out hypotheses, and now it has become the grospel truth. People that go into them became their product. It doesn't matter how you are, who you are, how you are structured, how you are built, how you are made. It doesn't matter. You just go in there and be that product. And that, to me is not life.

148. The main characteristic JKD is the absence of the usual classical passive blocking. Blocking is the least efficient. Jeet Kune-Do is offensive; it's alive and it's free.

155. The techniques, though they play an important role in the early stage, should not be too restrictive, complex or mechanical. If we cling to them, we will become bound by their limitation. Remember, you are expressing the technique, and not doing Technique number two, Stance three, Section four?

166. To me totality is very important in sparring. Many styles claim this totality. They say that they can cope with all types of attacks; that their structures cover all the possible lines and angles, and are capable of retaliation from all angles and lines. If this is true, then how did all the different styles come about? If they are in totality, why do some use only the straight lines, others the round lines, some only kicks, and why do still others who want to be different just flap and flick their hands? To me a system that clings to one small aspect of combat is actually in bondage.

168. To reach the masses, some sort of big organization (whether) domestic and foreign branch affiliation, is not necessary. To reach the growing number of students, some sort of pre-conformed set must be established as standards for the branch to follow. As a result all members will be conditioned according to the prescribed system. Many will probably end up as a prisoner of a systematized drill.

170. Using no way as way, having no limitation as limitation.