It's often forgot that Bruce Lee was as much a philosopher as he was a martial artist. Here are some wonderful quotes from him. They made me think a lot. I hope some of them do the same for you. [P.S. I didn't like the music so turned it down and put my own on!!]

I love Bruce for his thinking. Of course I trained in Jeet Kun Do for many many years. I call it the mental framework from where your training begins.

Yeh? Me to. I have great respect for him. A very deep thinker indeed. Ah you've done some JKD eh? How was that? If I had the time I would like to but my love is Aikido.

"When I punch a hole in your face, it will make you ugly, and girls won't have sex with you."

"I'm going to play basketball with your head. If you're lucky, I'll remove it from your body first."

"The one thing every martial artist must know, is how to bite off an opponents nose."

"When two fists collide, one fist will explode into pieces, if the other fist is mine."

-RoR

It's often forgot that Bruce Lee was as much a philosopher as he was a martial artist.
Well, I doubt that if by philosophy you mean the classical fields of ontology, epistemology, logic and ethics*.

He seems like a reasonably intelligent guy, though.

*Note that classical 'ethics' has a meaning akin to praxeology or teleology. Ethics in the modern sense, insofar as it does not attempt to prove the logical necessity of given normative claims, is not philosophy - it is sophistry and psychology.

Hi Vichy!

I'm not sure those western classifications do justice to philosophy in its entirety though? I think Socrates' edict to "Know thyself" could be classified broadly as epistemology and I do think that Bruce thought and read greatly on this subject. In fact, I know he did. I think that would be enough to make one a philosopher, don't you?

His book 'The Tao of Jeet Kun Do' has as much to do with Taoism as it does with the martial arts. This, of course, is what the arts originally were in Asia. They were never devoid of a philosophy - only in the West did that separation take place. I have to say I have certainly learnt a lot about Taoism by reading Lee.

However, I accept different people have different views.

A favorite movie as a young teen: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078975/

Circle of Iron

If you can get over the cheese factor its an interesting introduction of some of Bruce's 'philosophy' on Buddhism. And the fighting is fun too