Bruce Lee Quotes for a Modern Martial Artist
The latest instalment of Famous Fight Quotes needs no introduction. From the founder of Jeet Kune Do and movie icon, these Bruce Lee Quotes are witty, insightful and full of treasures.
There are countless classic short soundbite Bruce Lee Quotes:
“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.”
“Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own.”
“Obey the principles without being bound by them.”
“In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup.”
“Be self aware, rather than a repetitious robot.”
“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”
“A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard.”
“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.”
“The essence of fighting is the art of moving at the right time.”
But let’s look at some of the longer Bruce Lee Quotes.
Here he talks about determination to win:
“You must have complete determination. The worst opponent you can come across is one whose aim has become an obsession. For instance, if a man has decided that he is going to bite off your nose no matter what happens to him in the process, the chances are he will succeed in doing it. He may be severely beaten up, too, but that will not stop him from carrying out his objective. That is the real fighter.”
The last two really capture the essence of what Bruce Lee hoped to achieve and also what MMA is all about:
“In Jeet Kune Do, one does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity. Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I’ve understood the art, a punch is just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. The height of cultivation is really nothing special. It is merely simplicity; the ability to express the utmost with the minimum. It is the halfway cultivation that leads to ornamentation. Jeet Kune-Do is basically a sophisticated fighting style stripped to its essentials.”
“In building a statue, a sculptor doesn’t keep adding clay to his subject. Actually, he keeps chiselling away at the inessentials until the truth of its creation is revealed without obstructions. Thus, contrary to other styles, being wise in Jeet Kune-Do doesn’t mean adding more; it means to minimize, in other words to hack away the unessential. It is not daily increase but daily decrease; hack away the unessential.”
“hack away the unessential”
