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.

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

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.

Real living is living for others.

Linda and I aren’t one and one. We are two halves that make a whole — two halves fitted together are more efficient than either half would ever be alone!

If one loves, one need not have an ideology of love.

Seek to understand the root. It is futile to argue as to which single leaf, which design of branch, or which attractive flower you like; when you understand the root, you understand all its blossoming.

Those who are unaware they are walking in darkness will never seek the light.

Learning is never cumulative, it is a movement of knowing which has no beginning and no end.

Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.

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

The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.

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

Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.

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.

For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.

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.

In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup.

Be self aware, rather than a repetitious robot.

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

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.

You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.

Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.

Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.

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.

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.

The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or defeat. Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment.

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

Defeat is a state of mind; No one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul.

Fear comes from uncertainty; we can eliminate the fear within us when we know ourselves better. As the great Sun Tzu said: “When you know yourself and your opponent, you will win every time. When you know yourself but not your opponent, you will win one and lose one. However, when you do not know yourself or your opponent, you will be imperiled every time.”

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

Obey the principles without being bound by them.

As you think, so shall you become.

To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.

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

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.

To me, defeat in anything is merely temporary…Defeat simply tells me that something is wrong in my doing; it is a path leading to success and truth.

If you think a thing is impossible, you’ll only make it impossible.

A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard.

The second-hand artist blindly following his sensei or sifu accepts his pattern. As a result, his action is and , more importantly, his thinking become mechanical. His responses become automatic, according to set patterns, making him narrow and limited.

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.

The man who is really serious, with the urge to find out what truth is, has no style at all. He lives only in what is.

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.

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

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.

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.

Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.

Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.

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.

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.

Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.

Using no way as a way, having no limitation as limitation.

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.

Be happy, but never satisfied.

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.

Not being tense but ready.
Not thinking but not dreaming.
Not being set but flexible.
Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement.
It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.

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

The more we value things, the less we value ourselves.

Only the self-sufficient stand alone – most people follow the crowd and imitate.

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

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

What you habitually think largely determines what you will ultimately become.

It’s not what you give, it’s the way you give it.

Knowing is not enough; We must apply. Willing is not enough; We must do.

If you always put limits 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.

To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.

Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.

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.

Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

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.

Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.

If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.

A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence.

Time means a lot to me because you see I am also a learner and am often lost in the joy of forever developing.

The knowledge and skills you have achieved are meant to be forgotten so you can float comfortably in emptiness, without obstruction.

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.

Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.

The possession of anything begins in the mind.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

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

Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

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!!

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

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.

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

In order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature.

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.

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.

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.

We have great work ahead of us, and it needs devotion and much, much energy. To grow, to discover, we need involvement, which is something I experience every day — sometimes good, sometimes frustrating.

There is no such thing as maturity. There is instead an ever-evolving process of maturing. Because when there is a maturity, there is a conclusion and a cessation. That’s the end. That’s when the coffin is closed.

The intangible represents the real power of the universe. It is the seed of the tangible.

Everybody has to think for himself. A right way for a big man may not be a right way for a small man. A right way for someone who is slow may not be a right way for someone who is quick. Each person must understand his weaknesses and his strengths.

Don’t fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.

Now I see that I will never find the light Unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel, Consuming myself.

Remember no man is really defeated unless he is discouraged.

In the middle of chaos lies opportunity.

I wish neither to possess nor to be possessed. I no longer covet ‘paradise’. More important, I no longer fear ‘hell’.

The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning but I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it, until this moment.

Awareness has no frontier; it is giving of your whole being, without exclusion.

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

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

Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are the weeds that strangle confidence.

The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.

To be bound by a traditional martial art style or styles is the way of the mindless, enslaved martial artist. But to be inspired by the traditional martial art and to achieve further heights is a way of genius.

An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind. It is not satisfied with explanation, with conclusions. Nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion.

One will never get more than he thinks he can get. you have what it takes.

Freedom discovers the man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.