20 Bruce Lee Quotes on Mindset

Bruce Lee quotes on mindset

4. A good martial artist does not become tense but ready. Not thinking yet not dreaming, ready for whatever may come. A martial artist has to take responsibility for himself and face the consequences of his own doing. To have no technique, there is no opponent, because the word 'I' does not exist. When the opponent expands I contract and when he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, 'I' do not hit, 'It' hits all by itself.

7. Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

9. Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there.

18. Faith is a state of mind that can be conditioned through self-discipline. Faith will accomplish.

20. Possession of anything begins in the mind.

21. Thoughts are things.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

24. The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits.

25. Emptiness the starting point. - In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup. My friend, drop all you preconceived and fixed ideas and be neutral. Do you know why this cup is useful? Because it is empty.

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

49. What IS is more important than WHAT SHOULD BE. To many people are looking at 'what is' from a position of thinking 'what should be.'

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.

69. Know the difference between a catastrophe and an inconvenience. - To realize that it's just an inconvenience, that it is not a catastrophe, but just an unpleasantness, is part of coming into your own, part of waking up.

70. The change is from inner to outer. - We start by dissolving our attitude not by altering outer conditions.

72. Cease negative mental chattering. - If you think a thing is impossible, you'll make it impossible. Pessimism blunts the tools you need to succeed.

109. In combat, spontaneity rules; rote performance of technique perishes.

112. It is true that the mental aspect of kung-fu is the desired end; however, to achieve this end, technical skill must come first.

117. Jeet Kune Do uses no way as way. The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.

145. The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.

149. The mind is like a fertile garden in which anything that is planted, flowers or weeds, will grow.

154. The possession of anything begins in the mind.