"A kata is not fixed or immoveable. Like water, it's ever changing and fits itself to the shape of the vessel containing it. However, kata are not some kind of beautiful competitive dance, but a grand martial art of self-defense - which determines life and death." (Kenwa Mabuni)
"A teacher must never impose this student to fit his favourite pattern; a good teacher functions as a pointer, exposing his student's vulnerability (and) causing him to explore both internally and finally integrating himself with his being. Martial art should not be passed out indiscriminately." (Bruce Lee)
"I believe that the only way to teach anyone proper self-defence is to approach each individual personally. Each one of us is different and each one of us should be taught the correct form. By correct form I mean the most useful techniques the person is inclined toward. Find his ability and then develop these techniques. I don't think it is important whether a side kick is performed with the heel higher than the toes, as long as the fundamental principle is not violated. Most classical martial arts training is a mere imitative repetition - a product - and individuality is lost." (Bruce Lee)
"I hope martial artists are more interested in the root of martial arts and not the different decorative branches, flowers or leaves." (Bruce Lee)
"I'm not telling you to defeat the enemy, but be a man who can live. Never be enslaved by martial arts take pleasure in them." (Toshitsugu Takamatsu)
"Karate is the most Zen-like of all the Martial Arts. It has abandoned the sword. This means that it transcends the idea of winning and losing to become a way of thinking and living for the sake of other people in accordance with the way of Heaven. Its meanings, therefore, reach the profoundest levels of human thought." (Mas Oyama)
"Knowledge in martial arts actually means self-knowledge. A martial artist has to take responsibility for himself and accept the consequences of his own doing. The understanding of JKD is through personal feeling from movement to movement in the mirror of the relationship and not through a process of isolation. To be is to be related. To isolate is death. To me, ultimately, martial arts means honestly expressing yourself. Now, it is very difficult to do. It has always been very easy for me to put on a show and be cocky, and be flooded with a cocky feeling and feel pretty cool and all that. I can make all kinds of phoney things. Blinded by it. Or I can show some really fancy movement. But to experience oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly, now that, my friend, is very hard to do." (Bruce Lee)
"Originally this was the most important thing about martial arts - to reach a higher level, to become a strong human being. Strong doesn't mean big arms. It means who can be a more strict human being with himself. That is the ideal of martial arts." (Tsutomu Ohshima)
"One should not have a glance or attitude that lets others know that one is practicing martial arts." (Toda sensei)
"Studying the martial Way is like climbing a cliff: keep going forward without rest. Resting is not permissible because it causes recessions to old adages of achievement. Persevering day in, day out improves techniques, but resting one day causes lapses. This must be prevented." (Mas Oyama)
"The path of Martial Arts begins and ends with courtesy. So be genuinely polite on every occasion." (Mas Oyama)
"The strongest men and the greatest martial arts masters are born that way, so no effort can attain that; but when it comes to exerting our whole heart and disregarding our lives, to whom should we be inferior? No one should think he’ll lose, even to the greatest warriors. Why is that? Because if you back off such a person, who will back off you?" (Suzuki Shosan)
"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." (Bruce Lee)
"To practice Zen or the Martial Arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserve - as if you might die in the next instant." (Taisen Deshimaru)
"Train the body and develop stamina and endurance. But the spirit of competition and power that presides over them is not good, it reflects a distorted vision of life. The root of the martial arts is not there." (Taisen Deshimaru)
"Training with the right attitude of mind is the key to transforming what we do from a sport to a martial art" (Shifu Yan Lei)
"Understand that the essence of martial arts is not the art itself, but what's hidden deep within yourself." (Gogen Yamaguchi)
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