a Star Wars thing;
People treating Yoda as this font of wisdom (he 's very fallible if you count in Eps I-III) see "do or do not, there is no try" as this pearl of wisdom.
I don't see it that way. When he shows up in Ep V he's the archtypical cantankerous ancient sifu/sensei. Theoretically he's heard thousands of students say they'll do their best, over the years. He's being crabby about "just skip to the chase, will'ya?" It's not wisdom for the ages, it's portraiture.
@Leucrotta
I wonder how many venerated Zen koans were just the old grumpy masters fucking with students.
Granted, in Zen at least, fucking with students /is/ part of the practice, so it might be hard to tell. :-P
@emanate I’ve told you my variant on the “a monk goes to a hot dog vendor” joke right?
@Leucrotta
Something something one with everything? :-P
