Index4INDEX Card 309: Bruce Lee 5

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

-- Bruce Lee

For more about Bruce Lee, keep reading....

About the Quote

Knowledge will give you power, but good character will give you respect. While not as brief as the wording Bruce Lee himself had used for this quote, it leaves no doubt as to what he meant.

People can have power without respect, but having respect makes it easier to maintain power. Sometimes knowledge can be used as a vehicle to acquire power; after all, it's not an easy thing to achieve and maintain power if one is stupid.

It's possible for people to bad character to have respect, but comes with the attached cost of fear. In this case, people do things to avoid negative consequences ranging from an insult to losing one's life. When a person has good character, people do things in order for that respect to be reflected onto them. It could take the form of a compliment or acknowledgement as a peer, a rival, or even a superior.

If we go by the 2000 movie Gladiator, it is obvious that Maximus Decimus Meridius had earned respect because of his good character. It's also obvious that Commodus, son of the recently deceased Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius has the sort of respect usually given to people of bad character.

Some (More) Information about Bruce Lee

It was when Bruce Lee was studing at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, US that he opened his first dojo (martial arts school). In 1964 he moved to Oakland, California, US. This is where he set himself apart from other martial arts instructors.

Bruce Lee had developed his own martial arts technique-- not style, but rather technique. He called it jeet kune do (also known by the letters JKD). JKD is a blend of not only the martial arts of ancient kung fu and western boxing and fencing but also philosophy (which he had studied in college). As a result, Bruce Lee was the first teacher of JKD anywhere in the world.

At a karate tournament in Los Angeles, California, US, Bruce Lee demonstrated kung fu to the audience. Present was a Hollywood television producer who saw this demonstration. The producer offered Bruce Lee the role of Kato in the television series The Green Hornet. The series, which aired in 1966 and 1967, featured the crime fighting duo of a wealthy publisher and his chauffer. Although the role of Kato the chauffeur raised Bruce Lee's profile in the United States, he believed it was too limiting compared to what he was capable of doing as an actor and performer.

Times were tough for Bruce Lee after _The Green Hornet was cancelled. When he wasn't acting for pay, he gave private JKD lessons to big-name Hollywood celebrities; among these was Steve McQueen. In one of the few acting jobs he had during this period, the movie Marlowe, Lee drew widespread attention for his scene in which he was a one-man wrecking crew in an office, and his wrecking was done with karate and kickboxing moves. In 1971, due to lack of work (not including Marlowe), Bruce Lee returned to Hong Kong.

-- Source

Post Details

• Index4INDEX image made by @magnacarta using MS Paint.
• Quotes I use for Index4INDEX are stored in an Excel 2007 spreadsheet. Recently I added database functionality for limited searching.

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• Index4INDEX Card 169: Bruce Lee 4
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• Index4INDEX Card 1: Brue Lee 1 -- quote only

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