As it happens, the Luke-Yoda phraseology like "Do or do not. There is no try" seems to be drawn by George Lucas from the popular late 1960s era books by Carlos

As it happens, the Luke-Yoda phraseology like "Do or do not. There is no try" seems to be drawn by George Lucas from the popular late 1960s era books by Carlos Castaneda about a mentorship (~7 mil copies sold). That in turn seems to be about the apprenticeship that Castaneda had with his UCLA PhD advisor Harold Garfinkel: Parallel Yoda quotes: https://books.google.com/books?id=pAjYCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT47#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=pAjYCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT47#v=one... via: https://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cover_story/2015/12/star_wars_is_a_pastiche_how_george_lucas_combined_flash_gordon_westerns.html https://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cover_story/2015/12/star... Thread with 1975 magazine explanation of Castaneda's advisor found partly via David Chapman: https://twitter.com/thadk/status/1670316860368199681?s=20 https://twitter.com/thadk/status/1670316860368199681?s=20