One of the most humble and sweet men was ironically one of the most famous fighters - Bruce Lee. One of his lesser known talents was his astute philosophy of good living. Like his martial arts, his philosophy was in a style-less style drawing upon all the best work of his peers and predecessors.
Bruce Lee - The Lost Interview, 1971http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKRbYN7070wI recommend people persevere and watch the whole interview, and if you like the way he thinks, watch and read more of his work. He makes a lot of sense, or at least makes a lot of sense to me when I need it. His words are indelibly written into who I am now.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, martial arts have been such a boon in my life. I think the strength of martial arts is that the philosophy and technique are, for the most part, one and the same. And a martial style or school of thought has the benefit of mirroring a dogma in a non-dogmatic and a much more practical way to the degree that it could replace a dogmatic religion as a system of living, for those who need the structure and safety blanket that religion provided.
It's easy to read a book and commit some of it to memory, and it's also easy to forget most of it. With martial arts, the intellectual/spiritual philosophy is intrinsic with the physical training and body conditioning. It becomes a part of who you are, movement, fitness, energy, awareness, composure, attitude, expression, self-assurance, perception of self and others, as a reservoir of potential that is always there, rather than actual realised words and advice committed to memory. It's unthinking wisdom, unconscious wisdom, rooted into you in the same way the physical techniques eventually become second-nature committed to muscle memory. Confidence and faith in yourself as a trained muscle, always there ready and instinctively, even when not in use, rather than evoked in a moment of doubt by reciting an uplifting mantra in your head.