10 pieces of wisdom from Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee is best known for his on-screen skills as a Kung-Fu hero. But throughout his life he was a fastidious keeper of journals that reveal a passion for mental and spiritual development.

In Bruce Lee The Tao of Gung Fu: A Study in the Way of Chinese Material Art, Linda Lee Cadwell describes how her late husband, Bruce Lee, was dedicated to cultivating knowledge and honing his insight.

"Immersing himself in the study of ancient wisdom was the essential step for Bruce to arrive at that crucial point of introspection from where he was able to discern the principles that were essential for his own growth," she writes. 

"Insight is not a quality that comes naturally, rather it is a characteristic that is nurtured through intelligent decision-making."

Check out these 10 pieces of wisdom from the martial arts master: 

1.  "Self-actualisation is the important thing. And my personal message to people is that I hope they will go toward self-actualisation rather than self-image actualisation. I hope that they will search within themselves for honest self-expression." 

2. "Be water, my friend. Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."

3. "Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful. Reject what is useless. Add what is essentially your own."

4. "Be a practical dreamer backed by action."

5. "To change with change is the changeless state."

6. "Always be yourself; express yourself; have faith in yourself."

7. "When I look around, I always learn something and that is to be always yourself, and to express yourself, to have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it. Start from the very root of your being, which is 'how can I be me?'"

8. "Under the sky, under the heavens, there is but one family."

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

10. "Walk on!"