Bill Jones > Bill's Quotes

“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

“Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own”
― Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee ― Wisdom for the Way

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

“Don't fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”
― Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

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

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

“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.”
― Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

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

“Bring the mind into sharp focus and make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere. The mind must be emancipated from old habits, prejudices, restrictive thought processes and even ordinary thought itself.”
― Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“...we have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone and we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.”
― Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“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

“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

“The perfect way is only difficult for those who pick and choose. Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference and heaven and earth are set apart; if you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between “for” and “against” is the mind’s worst disease.”
― Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.”
― Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee Letters of the Dragon: An Anthology of Bruce Lee's Correspondence with Family, Friends, and Fans 1958-1973

“If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”
― Bruce Lee

“As you think, so shall you become.”
― Bruce Lee

“The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits.”
― Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee Jeet Kune Do: Bruce Lee's Commentaries on the Martial Way

“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

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

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

“It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.”
― Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“Effort within the mind further limits the mind, because effort implies struggle towards a goal and when you have a goal, a purpose, an end in view, you have placed a limit on the mind.”
― Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.”
― Bruce Lee

“Relationship is understanding. It is a process of self-revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself -- to be is to be related.”
― Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

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

“In life, we accept naturally the full reality of what we see and feel in general with no shadow of a doubt. Philosophy, however, does not accept what life believes, and strives to convert reality into a problem. Thus, rather than making life easy for living by living in accord with life, philosophy complicates it by replacing the world's tranquillity with the restlessness of problems.”
― Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

“Balance your thoughts with action.”
― Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

“The six principle steps of teaching. Motivation of the trainee Maintaining their complete attention Promoting mental activity (thinking) — discussion, question, lecture Creating a clear picture of material to be learned; outlining the material Developing comprehension of the significance, the implications, and the practical application of the material being presented (clear goals) Repetition of the five preceding steps until learning has taken place”
― Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

“Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“English is the largest of human tongues, with several times the vocabulary of the second largest language -- this alone made it inevitable that English would eventually become, as it did, the lingua franca of this planet, for it is thereby the richest and most flexible -- despite its barbaric accretions . . . or, I should say, because of its barbaric accretions. English swallows up anything that comes its way, makes English out of it.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land