"Learn, master, and achieve."

Did Bruce Lee end a quote by saying "Learn, master, and achieve."? Read on! 

Introduction 

There's no shortage of imagery containing the quote above. It usually takes some form of the following:

"Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it. Learn, master, and achieve."

There does not appear to be any "definitive" source for this quote. It's sprinkled among the usual uncited "quote sites" and it appears in a few books that collect such sayings without doing any verification.

The Sources

Bruce Lee: Artist of Life, 1999

I checked the seven authoritative sources for Bruce Lee quotes that I described in my last post. It turns out that one of them, Bruce Lee: Artist of Life John Little, 1999) is the source for part of the quote. That book includes the following:

"Learn the principles, abide by the principles, and then dissolve the principles. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it, and obey the principles without being bound by them."

But that's all. Nothing about "learn, master, and achieve." Notice the slightly different phrasing as well.

The source for the real quote is "a mimeographed printout that Bruce Lee had given out to members of the L.A. Chinatown school, circa 1967."

A Possible Origin

Fightingmaster.com, 17 April 2003

The oldest source for the false quote that I can identify, courtesy of the Internet Archive, is from what looks like a totally reliable Web site called Fightingmaster.com. Their version, archived on 17 April 2003, says:

""Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it. LEARN, MASTER AND ACHIEVE!!!"

The three exclamation points alone indicate, to me, that this is a fabrication.

Conclusion

The best use of Bruce Lee's words would be to work with his original quote:

"Learn the principles, abide by the principles, and then dissolve the principles. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it, and obey the principles without being bound by them."

Feel free to drop the words created by an excited early 2000's Web master.

If you have a legitimate source for the quote investigated here that you want to contribute, I'm interested!

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