A phrase allegedly uttered by Bruce Lee about suffering due to an emotional reaction to the words of others and about the true power of calm has long been circulating on the Internet. We decided to check if he really said that.
During his lifetime, Bruce Lee was not only a master of martial arts, but master philosophical sayings, so on various platforms you can find many quotes attributed to the actor. One of them, in a popular translation into Russian, goes like this: “You will continue to suffer if you continue to react emotionally to everything that is said to you. True strength is to sit back and observe it all with logic. If words control you, it means anyone can control you. Breathe out and let these things pass by.”
So, posts with such a quote and a mention of Lee can be found on VKontakte in public pages Bruce Lee | The Dragon (1000 likes, 21,000 views), Best Books (300, 11 000), "Cold Blooded" (500, 16,000) and "Bruce Lee | Bruce Lee" (600, 10,000), as well as on numerous quotation sites (City.info, "3quotes.ru" And BBF) And "Peekaboo".
We have not been able to find a single authoritative source that would indicate where and when Lee said this phrase. Although in official accounts on social networks dedicated to the work of the actor who died in 1973 (for example, in Twitter), new content appears regularly, including numerous quotes from the movie star, but I couldn’t find the aforementioned words about “true power” there either.
To establish the authorship of the quote, our fellow fact checkers from the Agence France Presse (AFP) emailed Sydney Wilson, head of the licensing department of the Bruce Lee Foundation and part-time second cousin of Shannon Lee (Bruce Lee’s own daughter). In his response, Wilson stated, that there is no reason to attribute these words to the actor: “I have no evidence to confirm that Bruce Lee personally said this.” However, she added that in Episode 77 podcast about Lee's life and philosophy, compiled by his daughter, has similar motifs and ideas. The theme of the issue was: “It’s not what happens that matters, it’s your reaction to what happens,” but not a single phrase from there coincides with the quote being distributed.
Note that English-speaking Internet users also attribute these words to Warren Buffett, an American entrepreneur and one of the richest people in the world. There's even a screenshot of Buffett's tweet circulating online that contains this quote. At the same time, on official page there is no such post for an investor and, judging by the saved copies from web archive, never happened. Buffett's assistant Debbie Bosanek also reported AFP that these words do not belong to the Oracle of Omaha: “The quote from this fake Facebook screenshot* was never spoken by Warren Buffett.”
In fact, this is not a completely fake screenshot. In reality, the tweet was posted by a fake account of Warren Buffett: on the official verified page, only the name of the billionaire is indicated in the ID (@WarrenBuffett), while the fake one has the letters HQ added - @WarrenBuffettHQ. The imposter's account is currently suspended.
Your investigation spent and Quote Investigator (QI), which specializes in finding out the origins of quotes. They also concluded that the phrase about “true power” was neither Lee nor Buffett’s, since no significant evidence could be found that they ever said or wrote such a thing. Her earliest mention found by the QI website was in tweet user Cindy Flores for March 24, 2016, while the quote is not attributed to either a famous businessman or martial artist. QI added that Flores may not be the author of the words because it is difficult to identify the original source on social media, and that similar snippets of phrases had been circulating on Twitter for several years before Flores' post. And in November 2016 the phrase hit in the Odyssey website article entitled “19 Anonymous Quotes You Need to Read.” By the way, in Runet too meet publications where this quote is not attributed to anyone.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: @brucelee (Twitter)
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