87 Bruce Lee Quotes That Will Inspire You

Looking for the best Bruce Lee quotes? Then look no further.

The late Bruce Lee is one of my most inspiring figures of all time. Despite his unfortunate death at the age of 32 (over 40 years ago) he is still remembered as one of the most iconic people to ever grace the world.

His great level of success as a martial artist, actor and filmmaker in such a short period of time is a testament to his ambition, discipline and focus.

For someone so young he was full of great wisdom and I have put together 87 of the most powerful Bruce Lee quotes that will inspire you.

Related Post: The Best 20 Bruce Lee Picture Quotes 

Inspiring Bruce Lee Quotes

1. “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

2. “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

3. “Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.” – Bruce Lee

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

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

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

7. “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

8. “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done. Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal.” – Bruce Lee

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

10th Bruce Lee Quote: “Don’t fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.” – Bruce Lee

11. “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.” – Bruce Lee

12. “Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.” – Bruce Lee

13. “Do not be tense, just be ready, not thinking but not dreaming, not being set but being flexible. It is being “wholly” and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.” – Bruce Lee

14. “Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.” – Bruce Lee

15. “Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier.” – Bruce Lee

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

17. “If you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being.” – Bruce Lee

18. “There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.” – Bruce Lee

19. “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.” – Bruce Lee

20th Bruce Lee Quote: “For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.” – Bruce Lee

21. “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

22. “Life is never stagnation. It is constant movement, un-rhythmic movement, as we as constant change. Things live by moving and gain strength as they go.” – Bruce Lee

23. “In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup.” – Bruce Lee

24. “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

25. “A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence.” – Bruce Lee

26. “Time means a lot to me because you see I am also a learner and am often lost in the joy of forever developing.” – Bruce Lee

27. “Be self aware, rather than a repetitious robot.” – Bruce Lee

28. “Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul.
If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” – Bruce Lee

29. “The knowledge and skills you have achieved are meant to be forgotten so you can float comfortably in emptiness, without obstruction.” – Bruce Lee

30th Bruce Lee Quote: “As you think, so shall you become.” – Bruce Lee

31. “The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits.” – Bruce Lee

32. “Self-knowledge involves relationship. To know oneself is to study one self in action with another person. Relationship is a process of self evaluation and self revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself – to be is to be related.” – Bruce Lee

33. “Life is better lived than conceptualized. — This writing can be less demanding should I allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I’ve come to understand that life is best to be lived — not to be conceptualized. If you have to think, you still do not understand.” – Bruce Lee

34. “Defeat is not defeat unless accepted as a reality-in your own mind.” – Bruce Lee

35. “Fear comes from uncertainty; we can eliminate the fear within us when we know ourselves better.” – Bruce Lee

36. “Choose the positive. You have choice, you are master of your attitude, choose the positive, the constructive. Optimism is a faith that leads to success.” – Bruce Lee

37. “Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.” – Bruce Lee

38. “Using no way as a way, having no limitation as limitation.” – Bruce Lee

39. “The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a patter of systems.” – Bruce Lee

40th Bruce Lee Quote: “Be happy, but never satisfied.” – Bruce Lee

41. “If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you.” – Bruce Lee

42. “Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves. This difference between self-actualization and self-image actualization is very important. Most people live only for their image.” – Bruce Lee

43. “The stillness in stillness is not the real stillness; only when there is stillness in movement does the universal rhythm manifest.” – Bruce Lee

44. “Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.” – Bruce Lee

45. “Everything you do, if not in a relaxed state will be done at a lesser level than you are proficient. Thus the tensed expert marksman will aim at a level less than his/her student.” – Bruce Lee

46. “Flow in the living moment. — We are always in a process of becoming and nothing is fixed. Have no rigid system in you, and you’ll be flexible to change with the ever changing. Open yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the total openness of the living moment. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.” – Bruce Lee

47. “A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.” – Bruce Lee

48. “When one has reached maturity in the art, one will have a formless form. It is like ice dissolving in water. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, he can fit in with any style.” – Bruce Lee

49. “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.” – Bruce Lee

50th Bruce Lee Quote: “It’s not what you give, it’s the way you give it.” – Bruce Lee

51. “What you habitually think largely determines what you will ultimately become.” – Bruce Lee

52. “I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.” – Bruce Lee

53. “Reality is apparent when one ceases to compare. — There is “what is” only when there is no comparison at all, and to live with what is, is to be peaceful.” – Bruce Lee

54. “Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.” – Bruce Lee

55. “Life itself is your teacher, and you are in a state of constant learning.” – Bruce Lee

56. “Art is the way to the absolute and to the essence of human life. The aim of art is not the one-sided promotion of spirit, soul and senses, but the opening of all human capacities – thought, feeling, will – to the life rhythm of the world of nature. So will the voiceless voice be heard and the self be brought into harmony with it.” – Bruce Lee

57. “If you don’t want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.” – Bruce Lee

58. “Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.” – Bruce Lee

59. “The More we value things, the less we value ourselves.” – Bruce Lee

60th Bruce Lee Quote: “Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later the man who wins, is the man who thinks he can.” – Bruce Lee

61. “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

62. “Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.” – Bruce Lee

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

64. “Those who are unaware they are walking in darkness will never seek the light.” – Bruce Lee

65. “To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.” – Bruce Lee

66. “The possession of anything begins in the mind.” – Bruce Lee

67. “The world is full of people who are determined to be somebody or to give trouble. They want to get ahead, to stand out. Such ambition has no use for a gung fu man, who rejects all forms of self-assertiveness and competition.” – Bruce Lee

68. “As long as I can remember I feel I have had this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force which I hold in my hand.” – Bruce Lee

69. “It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” – Bruce Lee

70th Bruce Lee Quote ‎“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee

71. “Obey the principles without being bound by them.” – Bruce Lee

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

73. “Preparation for tomorrow is hard work today.” – Bruce Lee

74. “You cannot force the Now. — But can you neither condemn nor justify and yet be extraordinarily alive as you walk on? You can never invite the wind, but you must leave the window open.” – Bruce Lee

75. “If you think a thing is impossible, you’ll only make it impossible.” – Bruce Lee

76. “Because one does not want to be disturbed, to be made uncertain, he establishes a pattern of conduct, of thought, a pattern of relationship to man etc. Then he becomes a slave to the patter and takes the pattern to be the real thing.” – Bruce Lee

77. “The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.” – Bruce Lee

78. “A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard.” – Bruce Lee

79. “Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.” – Bruce Lee

80th Bruce Lee Quote: “Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are the weeds that strangle confidence.” – Bruce Lee

81. “In order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature.” – Bruce Lee

82. “Real living is living for others.” – Bruce Lee

83. “There is “what is” only when there is no comparing and to live with “what is” is to be peaceful.” – Bruce Lee

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

85. “In the middle of chaos lies opportunity.” – Bruce Lee

86. “Only the self-sufficient stand alone – most people follow the crowd and imitate.” – Bruce Lee

87. “It is not a shame to be knocked down by other people. The important thing is to ask when you’re being knocked down, ‘Why am I being knocked down?’ If a person can reflect in this way, then there is hope for this person.” – Bruce Lee

Which of these Bruce Lee quotes is your favourite? Post your favourite Bruce Lee quote in the comments below!