CHESS QUOTES II

quotations about chess

It is my style to take my opponent and myself on to unknown grounds. A game of chess is not an examination of knowledge; it is a battle of nerves.

DAVID BRONSTEIN

attributed, "50 Greatest Chess Quotes Of All Time"


Check and mate! Now king me!

HOMER SIMPSON

The Simpsons


The board may have only thirty-two pieces and sixty-four squares, but within that confined space the game has near-infinite depth and possibility.

DAVID SHENK

The Immortal Game


Like most conversations and most chess games, we all start off the same and we all end the same, with a brief moment of difference in between. Fertilization to fertilizer. Ashes to ashes. And we spark across the gap.

BRIAN CHRISTIAN

The Most Human Human


In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn't do well. They'd get bad openings. You cannot compare the playing strength, you can only talk about natural ability. Memorization is enormously powerful. Some kid of fourteen today, or even younger, could get an opening advantage against Capablanca, and especially against the players of the previous century, like Morphy and Steinitz. Maybe they would still be able to outplay the young kid of today. Or maybe not, because nowadays when you get the opening advantage not only do you get the opening advantage, you know how to play, they have so many examples of what to do from this position. It is really deadly, and that is why I don't like chess any more

BOBBY FISCHER

radio interview, October 16, 2006


Chess is a wooden or ivory allegory.

CHATFIELD

attributed, Day's Collacon


On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite.

EMANUEL LASKER

Lasker's Manual of Chess


Chess masters are known for their remarkable memory for the pieces on a chessboard. But it's not because people with photographic memories become chess masters. The masters are no better than beginners when remembering a board of randomly arranged pieces. Their memory captures meaningful relations among the pieces, such as threats and defenses, not just their distribution in space.

STEVEN PINKER

How the Mind Works


Of Chess it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is the fault of life, not Chess.

WILLIAM EWART NAPIER

attributed, Chess: The Sixty Four Stratagems


Chess is a science as well as an art. In its exercise the tendency is to premature mechanical facility rather than to a clear perception of principles; though upon this, of course, all true and lasting faculty necessarily depends.

JAMES MASON

preface, The Principles of Chess in Theory & Practice


Chess holds its master in its own bonds, shackling the mind and brain so that the inner freedom of the very strongest must suffer.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

attributed, Chess Digest Magazine, 1975


Life is like a game of chess, in which there are a number of complex moves possible. The choice is open, but the move contains within itself all future moves. One is free to choose, but what follows is the result of one's choice. From the consequences of one's actions, there is never any escape.

SHELLY SMITH

attributed, Inspirational Quotes & Thoughts


Of chess it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is the fault of life, not chess.

WILLIAM NAPIER

attributed, The Encyclopaedia of Chess


For a game it is too serious, for seriousness too much of a game.

MOSES MENDELSSOHN

attributed, Total Chess


Chess is life.

BOBBY FISCHER


Chess is no whit inferior to the violin, and we have a large number of professional violinists.

MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK

attributed, Think Like a Grandmaster


It's always better to sacrifice your opponent's men.

SAVIELLY TARTAKOWER

attributed, Treasure Chess


Do not give up any Pawn, unless tolerably clear in your own mind that you will not need it at a later stage of the game. Every Pawn is a potential Queen. Do not forget this.

JAMES MASON

The Principles of Chess in Theory & Practice


Time and space in chess are liquid generally, but in the person of the king they achieve perfect equivalence. This above all other reasons seems to me to account for the king's centrality. The queen, for example, is the most powerful major piece because for a given unit of time, the turn or move, it has the broadest choice of destination, the most freedom with respect to space. A pawn, on the other hand, is structurally incapable of occupying more than seven squares in any game. No matter how hard it works, this pawn will never see most parts of the board, not even given infinite time. For the king, however, every unit of time is also one unit of space, and vice versa. The king spends much of the game waiting. Games sometimes end before it has moved.

CYRUS CONSOLE

Romanian Notebook


The most important type of liquidation in chess is that which aims to convert some definite advantage into a clear win.

MAX EUWE & H. KRAMER

The Middlegame