Some great quotes in here; thanks for the research.
Chess Quotes
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my pleasure guys.
You forgot one: Chessplayers mate better. (Damon Smith)
01 “When you see a good move, look for a better one”
(Emanuel Lasker)
02
“Nothing excites jaded Grandmasters more than a theoretical novelty”
(Dominic Lawson)
03
“The Pin is mightier than the sword”
(Fred Reinfeld)
04
“We cannot resist the fascination of sacrifice, since a passion for
sacrifices is part of a Chessplayer’s nature”
(Rudolf Spielman)
05
“All I want to do, ever, is just play Chess”
(Bobby Fischer)
06
“A win by an unsound combination, however showy,
fills me with artistic horror”
(Wilhelm Steinitz)
07
“The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the
Universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature
and the player on the other side is hidden from us”
(Thomas Huxley)
08
“Adequate compensation for a sacrifice is having a sound combination leading to a winning position; adequate compensation for a blunder is
having your opponent snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”
(Bruce A. Moon)
09 “Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation”
(Max Euwe)
10 “I don’t believe in psychology. I believe in good moves”
(Bobby Fischer)
11 “Modern Chess is too much concerned with things like
Pawn structure. Forget it, Checkmate ends the game”
(Nigel Short)
12 “Life is a kind of Chess, with struggle, competition, good and ill events”
(Benjamin Franklin)
13 “Even the laziest King flees wildly in the face of a double check!”
(Aaron Nimzowitsch)
14 “Combinations have always been the most intriguing aspect of Chess.
The masters look for them, the public applauds them, the critics
praise them. It is because combinations are possible that Chess
is more than a lifeless mathematical exercise. They are the
poetry of the game; they are to Chess what melody is to
music. They represent the triumph of mind over matter”
(Reuben Fine)
15 “I give 98 percent of my mental energy to Chess”
Others give only 2 percent
(Bobby Fischer)
16 “Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders”
(Savielly Tartakower)
17 “Chess is no whit inferior to the violin, and we have a
large number of professional violinists”
(Mikhail Botvinnik)
18 “Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack”
(Wilhelm Steinitz)
19 “The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake”
(Savielly Tartakover)
20 “Your body has to be in top condition. Your Chess deteriorates
as your body does. You can’t separate body from mind”
(Bobby Fischer)
21 “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)
22 “I have added these principles to the law: get the Knights
into action before both Bishops are developed”
(Emanuel Lasker)
23 “Life is like a game of Chess, changing with each move”
(Chinese proverb)
24 “You cannot play at Chess if you are kind-hearted”
(French Proverb)
25 “Its just you and your opponent at the board
and you’re trying to prove something”
(Bobby Fischer)
26 “It is the aim of the modern school, not to treat every position
according to one general law, but according to
the principle inherent in the position”
(Richard Reti)
27 “The Pawns are the soul of the game”
(Francois Andre Danican Philidor)
28 “In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before
everything else, for whereas the endings can be studied and
mastered by themselves, the middle game and the opening
must be studied in relation to the endgame”
(Jose Raul Capablanca)
29 “Without error there can be no brilliancy”
(Emanuel Lasker)
30 “Chess is like war on a board”
(Bobby Fischer)
31 “Chess is played with the mind and not with the hands!”
(Renaud and Kahn)
32 “Chess is mental torture”
(Garry Kasparov)
33 “Many have become Chess Masters,
no one has become the Master of Chess”
(Siegbert Tarrasch)
34 “The most important feature of the Chess position is the activity of the
pieces. This is absolutely fundamental in all phases of the game:
Opening, Middlegame and especially Endgame. The primary
constraint on a piece’s activity is the Pawn structure”
(Michael Stean)
35 “You have to have the fighting spirit. You have
to force moves and take chances”
(Bobby Fischer)
36 “Could we look into the head of a Chess player,
we should see there a whole world of feelings,
images, ideas, emotion and passion”
(Alfred Binet)
37 “Openings teach you openings. Endgames teach you chess!”
(Stephan Gerzadowicz)
38 “My style is somewhere between that of Tal and Petrosian”
(Reshevsky)
39 “Play the opening like a book, the middle game like
a magician, and the endgame like a machine”
(Spielmann)
40 “That’s what Chess is all about. One day you give your
opponent a lesson, the next day he gives you one”
(Bobby Fischer)
41 “Some part of a mistake is always correct”
(Savielly Tartakover)
42 “Methodical thinking is of more use in Chess than inspiration”
(C. J. S. Purdy)
43 “When in doubt... play Chess!”
(Tevis)
44 “Who is your opponent tonight,
tonight I am playing against the Black pieces”
(Akiba Rubinstein)
45 “I like the moment when I break a man’s ego”
(Bobby Fischer)
46 “Excellence at Chess is one mark of a scheming mind”
(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
47 “A bad day of Chess is better than any good day at work”
(Anonymous)
48 “Chess is the art of analysis”
(Mikhail Botvinnik)
49 “The mistakes are there, waiting to be made”
(Savielly Tartakower)
50 “There are tough players and nice guys, and I’m a tough player”
(Bobby Fischer)
51 “After black’s reply to 1.e4 with 1..e5, leaves him
always trying to get into the game”
(Howard Staunton)
52 “A player surprised is half beaten”
(Proverb)
53 “A passed Pawn increases in strength as the number
of pieces on the board diminishes”
(Capablanca)
54 “The essence of Chess is thinking about what Chess is”
(David Bronstein)
55 “I am the best player in the world and I am here to prove it”
(Bobby Fischer)
56 “Chess is a forcing house where the fruits of
character can ripen more fully than in life”
(Edward Morgan Foster)
57 “Half the variations which are calculated in a tournament game
turn out to be completely superfluous. Unfortunately, no one
knows in advance which half”
(Jan Tinman)
58 “Chess is as much a mystery as women”
(Purdy)
59 “Good positions don’t win games, good moves do”
(Gerald Abrahams)
60 “If I win a tournament, I win it by myself.
I do the playing. Nobody helps me”
(Bobby Fischer)
61 “What would Chess be without silly mistakes?”
(Kurt Richter)
62 “Before the endgame, the Gods have placed the middle game”
(Siegbert Tarrasch)
63 “Chess was Capablanca’s mother tongue”
(Reti)
64 “Alekhine is a poet who creates a work of art out of something
that would hardly inspire another man to
send home a picture post card”
(Max Euwe)
65 “Don’t even mention losing to me. I can’t stand to think of it”
(Bobby Fischer)
66 “During a Chess competition a Chessmaster should be a
combination of a beast of prey and a monk”
(Alexander Alekhine)
67 “No one ever won a game by resigning”
(Saviely Tartakower)
68 “The defensive power of a pinned piece is only imaginary”
(Aaron Nimzovich)
69 “When the Chess game is over, the Pawn and
the King go back to the same box”
(Irish saying)
70 “A strong memory, concentration, imagination, and a strong will
is required to become a great Chess player”
(Bobby Fischer)
71 “Every Chess master was once a beginner”
(Chernev)
72 “One doesn’t have to play well, it’s
enough to play better than your opponent”
(Siegbert Tarrasch)
73 “Chess is above all, a fight!”
(Emanuel Lasker)
74 “Discovered check is the dive bomber of the Chessboard”
(Reuben Fine)
75 “I know people who have all the will in the world,
but still can’t play good Chess”
(Bobby Fischer)
76 “A Chess game is a dialogue, a conversation between a player and his opponent. Each move by the opponent may contain threats or be a
blunder, but a player cannot defend against threats or take
advantage of blunders if he does not first ask himself:
What is my opponent planning after each move?”
(Bruce A. Moon)
77 “The hardest game to win is a won game”
(Emanuel Lasker)
78 “The most powerful weapon in Chess is to have the next move”
(David Bronstein)
79 “He who fears an isolated Queen’s Pawn should give up Chess”
(Siegbert Tarrasch)
80 “Different people feel differently about resigning”
(Bobby Fischer)
81 “Chess is not like life... it has rules!”
(Mark Pasternak)
82 “Why must I lose to this idiot?”
(Aron Nimzovich)
83 “It’s always better to sacrifice your opponent’s men”
(Savielly Tartakover)
84 “To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game”
(Savielly Tartakover)
85 “All that matters on the Chessboard is good moves”
(Bobby Fischer)
86 “Help your pieces so they can help you”
(Paul Morphy)
87 “In a gambit you give up a Pawn for the sake of getting a lost game”
(Samuel Standige Boden)
88 “It is not enough to be a good player... you must also play well”
(Siegbert Tarrasch)
89 “A sacrifice is best refuted by accepting it”
(Wilhelm Steinitz)
90 “Tactics flow from a superior position”
(Bobby Fischer)
91 “Later, I began to succeed in decisive games. Perhaps
because I realized a very simple truth: not only
was I worried, but also my opponent”
(Mikhail Tal)
92 “Chess is life”
(Bobby Fischer)
93 “Chess is a beautiful mistress”
(Bent Larsen)
94 “Some sacrifices are sound; the rest are mine”
(Mikhail Tal)
95
“Best by test: 1. e4”
(Bobby Fischer)
96 “A bad plan is better than none at all”
(Frank Marshall)
97
“Chess books should be used as we use glasses: to assist
the sight, although some players make use of them as if
they thought they conferred sight”
(Jose Raul Capablanca)
98 “There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones and mine”
(Mikhail Tal)
99
“Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all”
(Bobby Fischer)
100 “My opponents make good moves too. Sometimes
I don’t take these things into consideration”
(Bobby Fischer)
101 “The combination player thinks forward; he starts from
the given position, and tries the forceful moves in his mind”
(Emanuel Lasker)
102
“A Chess game is divided into three stages: the first, when you hope
you have the advantage, the second when you believe you have an
advantage, and the third... when you know you’re going to lose!”
(Savielly Tartakower)
103
“Chess demands total concentration”
(Bobby Fischer)
104
“Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make people happy”
(Siegbert Tarrasch)
105
“All my games are real”
(Bobby Fischer)
106
“Chess is everything: art, science and sport”
(Anatoly Karpov)
107
“Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic”
(Mikhail Botvinnik)
108
“Not all artists are Chess players, but all Chess players are artists”
(Marcel Duchamp)
109
“Chess is imagination”
(David Bronstein)
110
“I’m not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I’m the best”
You don’t need a match to prove it
(Bobby Fischer)
111
“If cunning alone were needed to excel, women”
would be the best Chess players
(Albin)
112
“Chess is thirty to forty percent psychology. You don’t have this
when you play a computer. I can’t confuse it”
(Judith Polgar)
113
“On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long”
(Emanuel Lasker)
114
“Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponents mind”
(Bobby Fischer)
115
“The passed Pawn is a criminal, who should be kept under lock and key.
Mild measures, such as police surveillance, are not sufficient”
(Aaron Nimzovich)
116
“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)
117
“Human affairs are like a Chess game: only those who do not
take it seriously can be called good players”
(Hung Tzu Ch’eng)
118
“The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made”
(Savielly Tartakover)
119
“Via the squares on the chessboard, the Indians explain the movement of
time and the age, the higher influences which control the world and
the ties which link Chess with the human soul”
(Al-Masudi)
120
“It is no time to be playing Chess when the house is on fire”
(Italian Proverb)
121
“You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what Chess teaches you is that you
must sit there calmly and think about whether its really a good idea
and whether there are other better ideas”
(Stanley Kubrick)
122
“Daring ideas are like Chess men moved forward. They
may be beaten, but they may start a winning game”
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
123
“Of all my Russian books, the defense contains and diffuses the
greatest ’warmth’ which may seem odd seeing how
supremely abstract Chess is supposed to be”
(Vladimir Nabokov)
124
“For surely of all the drugs in the world, Chess must be
the most permanently pleasurable”
(Assiac)
125
“A thorough understanding of the typical mating continuations makes
the most complicated sacrificial combinations leading up to them
not only not difficult, but almost a matter of course”
(Siegbert Tarrasch)
126
“Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that
characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness,
harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity”
(Vladimir Nabokov)
127
“Personally, I rather look forward to a computer program winning the
world Chess Championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility”
(Richard Dawkings)
128
“The boy (then a 12 year old boy named Anatoly Karpov) doesn’t have a
clue about Chess, and there’s no future at all for him in this profession”
(Mikhail Botvinnik)
129
“As one by one I mowed them down, my superiority
soon became apparent”
(Jose Capablanca)
130
“Though most people love to look at the games of the great attacking masters, some of the most successful players in history have been the
quiet positional players. They slowly grind you down by taking away your space, tying up your pieces, and leaving you with virtually nothing to do!”
(Yasser Seirawan)
131
“Chess is ruthless: you’ve got to be prepared to kill people
(Nigel Short)
132
“There must have been a time when men were demigods,
or they could not have invented Chess”
(Gustav Schenk)
133
“Chess is really ninety nine percent calculation”
(Soltis)
134
“Chess is the gymnasium of the mind”
(Blaise Pascal)
135
“The game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very
valuable qualities of the mind are to be acquired and strengthened by
it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of Chess”
(Benjamin Franklin)
136
“Winning isn’t everything... but losing is nothing”
(Mednis)
137
“Only sissies Castle”
(Rob Sillars)
138
“Look at Garry Kasparov. After he loses, invariably he wins the
next game. He just kills the next guy. That’s something
that we have to learn to be able to do”
(Maurice Ashley)
139
“There just isn’t enough televised Chess ”
(David Letterman)
140
“Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently.
Be the Chess player, not the Chess piece”
(Ralph Charell)
141
“Chess is a terrible game. If you have no center, your opponent
has a freer position. If you do have a center, then you
really have something to worry about!”
(Siegbert Tarrasch)
142
“Any material change in a position must come about by mate,
a capture, or a Pawn promotion”
(Purdy)
143
“We don’t really know how the game was invented, though there are
suspicions. As soon as we discover the culprits, we’ll let you know”
(Bruce Pandolfini)
144
“The battle for the ultimate truth will never be won.
And that’s why Chess is so fascinating”
(Hans Kmoch)
145
“Chess makes man wiser and clear-sighted”
(Vladimir Putin)
146
“I am still a victim of Chess. It has all the beauty of art and much
more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much
purer than art in its social position”
(Marcel Duchamp)
147
“Blessed be the memory of him who gave the world this immortal game”
(A. G. Gardiner)
148
“In the perfect Chess combination as in a first-rate short story, the
whole plot and counter-plot should lead up to a striking finale,
the interest not being allayed until the very last moment”
(Yates and Winter)
149
“Castle early and often”
(Rob Sillars)
150
“I believe that Chess possesses a magic that is also a help in advanced
age. A rheumatic knee is forgotten during a game of Chess and
other events can seem quite unimportant in comparison
with a catastrophe on the chessboard”
(Vlastimil Hort)
151
“Chess is a more highly symbolic game, but the aggressions are
therefore even more frankly represented in the play. It probably
began as a war game; that is, the representation of a miniature
battle between the forces of two kingdoms”
(Karl Meninger)
152
“No Chess Grandmaster is normal; they only
differ in the extent of their madness”
(Viktor Korchnoi)
153
“Chess is 99 percent tactics”
(Teichmann)
154
“I’d rather have a Pawn than a finger”
(Reuben Fine)
155
“Chess mastery essentially consists of analyzing”
Chess positions accurately
(Mikhail Botvinnik)
156
“If your opponent cannot do anything active, then don’t rush the position;
instead you should let him sit there, suffer, and beg you for a draw”
(Jeremy Silman)
157
“The Chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and
these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chessboard,
express their beauty abstractly, like a poem”
(Marcel Duchamp)
158
“Examine moves that smite! A good eye for smites is far more
important than a knowledge of strategical principles”
(Purdy)
159
“Chess is like life”
(Boris Spassky)
160
“If your opponent offers you a draw, try to work out
why he thinks he’s worse off”
(Nigel Short)
161
“Chess teaches you to control the initial excitement you feel when
you see something that looks good and it trains you to think
objectively when you’re in trouble”
(Stanley Kubrick)
162
“Let the perfectionist play postal”
(Yasser Seirawan)
163
“If Chess is a science, it’s a most inexact one. If Chess is an art, it is too
exacting to be seen as one. If Chess is a sport, it’s too esoteric. If Chess
is a game, it’s too demanding to be just a game. If Chess is a mistress,
she’s a demanding one. If Chess is a passion, it’s a rewarding
one. If Chess is life, it’s a sad one”
(Unknown)
164
“Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are
doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time”
(George Bernard Shaw)
165
“You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5,
and the path leading out is only wide enough for one”
(Mikhail Tal)
166
“I feel as if I were a piece in a game of Chess, when my
opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved”
(Soren Kierkegaard)
167
“When your house is on fire, you cant be bothered with the neighbors.
Or, as we say in Chess, if your King is under attack you don’t worry
about losing a Pawn on the Queen’s side”
(Gary Kasparov)
168
“Man is a frivolous, a specious creature, and like a Chess player, cares
more for the process of attaining his goal than for the goal itself”
(Dostoyevsky)
169
“When asked, -How is that you pick better moves than your opponents?,
I responded: I’m very glad you asked me that, because, as it happens,
there is a very simple answer. I think up my own moves, and I
make my opponent think up his”
(Alexander Alekhine)
170
“Mistrust is the most necessary characteristic of the Chess player”
(Siegbert Tarrasch)
171
“What is the object of playing a gambit opening?... To acquire a
reputation of being a dashing player at the cost of losing a game”
(Siegbert Tarrasch)
172
“Pawns: they are the soul of this game, they alone
form the attack and defense”
(Philidor)
173
“Chess is above all, a fight!”
(Emanuel Lasker)
174
“In Chess, at least, the brave inherit the earth”
(Edmar Mednis)
175
“There are two classes of men; those who are content to yield to circumstances and who play whist; those who aim to control
circumstances, and who play Chess”
(Mortimer Collins)
176
“The tactician must know what to do whenever something needs doing;
the strategist must know what to do when nothing needs doing”
(Savielly Tartakover)
177
“When you are lonely, when you feel yourself an alien in the world, play Chess. This will raise your spirits and be your counselor in war”
(Aristotle)
178
All Chess players should have a hobby”
(Savielly Tartakower)
179
“I played Chess with him and would have beaten him sometimes only he
always took back his last move, and ran the game out differently”
(Mark Twain)
180
“The tactician knows what to do when there is something to do; whereas
the strategian knows what to do when there is nothing to do”
(Gerald Abrahams)
181
“In Chess, just as in life, today’s bliss may be tomorrow’s poison”
(Assaic)
182
“You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a
game you win. You will have to lose hundreds of games
before becoming a good player”
(Jose Raul Capablanca)
183
“The way he plays Chess demonstrates a man’s whole nature”
(Stanley Ellin)
184
“You can only get good at Chess if you love the game”
(Bobby Fischer)
185
“A man that will take back a move at Chess will pick a pocket”
(Richard Fenton)
186
“Whoever sees no other aim in the game than that of giving checkmate
to one’s opponent will never become a good Chess player”
(Euwe)
187
“In blitz, the Knight is stronger than the Bishop”