* Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing. Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception. To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person. Awareness has no frontier; it is giving of your whole being, without exclusion.
o Tao of Jeet Kune Do

* If you're talking about combat — as it is — well then, baby you'd better train every part of your body!
o Bruce Lee: The Lost Interview

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Attributed

* A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard. Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life. Do not be concerned with escaping safely — lay your life before him.

* A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

* 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.

* 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.

* Boards do not hit back.

* A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.

* A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.

* Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back.

* All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.

* Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successfull personality and duplicate it.

* 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.

* 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.

* As you think, so shall you become.

* Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

* 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.

* By adopting a certain physical posture, a resonant chord is struck in spirit.

* To hell with circumstances. I create opportunities.

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

* 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. 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. Adapt!

* Eliminate "not clear" thinking and function from your root.

* Eventually, you learn to read groups of words. Where a student will see three motions, the experienced man will see one, because he sees the overall energy path.

* 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.

* Finally, a Jeet Kune Do man who says Jeet Kune Do is exclusively Jeet Kune Do is simply not with it. He is still hung up on his self-closing resistance, in this case anchored down to reactionary pattern, and naturally is still bound by another modified pattern and can move within its limits. He has not digested the simple fact that truth exists outside all molds; pattern and awareness is never exclusive.

* Give up thinking as though not giving it up. Observe techniques as though not observing.

* 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.

* I am not teaching you anything. I just help you to explore yourself.

* 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.

* 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.

* I hope martial artists are more interested in the root of martial arts and not the different decorative branches, flowers or leaves.

* I refer to my hands, feet and body as the tools of the trade. The hands and feet must be sharpened and improved daily to be efficient.

* I'm not a master, I'm a student-master, meaning that I have the knowledge of a master and the expertise of a master, but I'm still learning, So I'm a student-master. I don't believe in the word master, I consider the master as such when they close the casket.

* If I tell you I'm good, you would probably think I'm boasting, If I tell you I'm no good, You know I'm lying.

* If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.

* 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.

* If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

* If you don't want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.

* If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

* If you make an ass out of yourself, there will always be someone to ride you.

* If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.

* If you think a thing is impossible, you'll make it impossible.

* If you want to do your duty properly, you should do just a little more than that.

* If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you.

* 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.
o Variant: It is not daily increase but daily decrease; hack away the unessential.
In JKD, one does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.

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

* In Jeet Kune-Do, physical conditioning is a must for all martial artists. If you are not physically fit, you have no business doing any hard sparring. To me, the best exercise for this is running. Running is so important that you should keep it up during your lifetime. What time of the day you run is not important as long as you run. In the beginning you should jog easily and then gradually increase the distance and tempo, and finally include sprints to develop your 'wind.' Let me give you a bit of warning: just because you get very good at your training it should not go to your head that you are an expert. Remember, actual sparring is the ultimate, and the training is, only a means toward this. Besides running, one should also do exercises for the stomach — sit-ups, leg raises, etc. Too often one of those big-belly masters will tell you that his internal power has sunk to his stomach; he's not kidding, it is sunk and gone! To put it bluntly, he is nothing but fat and ugly.