Favorite Quotes on ChEsS

PLEASE ADD A QUOTE THAT MEANS SOMETHING TO YOU

"Chess is a terrific way for kids to build self image and self esteem." Saudin Robovic

"Chess opens and enriches your mind." Saudin Robovic "Becoming successful at chess allows you to discover your own personality. That's what I want for the kids I teach." Saudin Robovic

"Good positions don't win games, good moves do." Gerald Abrahams

"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

"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

"In chess, just as in life, today's bliss may be tomorrow's poison." Assaic

"Everything is in a state of flux, and this includes the world of chess" Mikhail Botvinnik

"Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic." Mikhail Botvinnik

"I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem." Ashleigh Brilliant

"The essence of chess is thinking aboKhusros chess is." David Bronstein

"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 Capablanca

"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 Capablanca

"Not all artists may be chess players, but all chess players are artists." Marcel Duchamp

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

"The way he plays chess demonstrates a man's whole nature." Stanley Ellin

"Whoever sees no other aim in the game than that of giving checkmate to one's opponent will never become a good chessplayer." Euwe

"A man that will take back a move at chess will pick a pocket." Richard Fenton

"You can only get good at chess if you love the game." Bobby Fischer

"The world is not likely to tire of an amusement which never repeats itself, of a game which today presents features as novel and charms as fresh as those with which it delighted, in the morning of history, the dwellers on the banks of the Ganges and Indus." Willard Fiske

"Life is a kind of chess, with struggle, competition, good and ill events." Benjamin Franklin

"The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strenghtened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions for life is a kind of Chess, in which we have points to gain, and competition or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or want of it. By playing at Chess then, we may learn:
First, Foresight...
Second, Circumspection...
Third, Caution...
And lastly, We learn by Chess the habit of not being discouraged by present bad appearances in the state of our affairs the habit of hoping for a favorable chance, and that of persevering in the secrets of resources."
Benjamin Franklin

"Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"You are for me the Queen on d8. And I am the pawn on d7!!" GM Eduard Gufeld 'Chess Player In Love' "For me, chess is life and every game is like a new life. Every chess player gets to live many lives in one lifetime." GM Eduard Gufeld

"In blitz, the knight is stronger than the bishop." Vlastimil Hort

"The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomenon of the Universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature, The player on the other side is hidden from us." T.H. Huxley

"Chess is a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe." Indian Proverb

"When the game is over, the king and pawn go into the same box" Italian Proverb

"It is no time to be playing chess when the house is on fire." Italian Proverb

"The older I grow, the more I value Pawns" Paul Keres

"'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays. "
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

""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

"On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not survive long." Emanuel Lasker

"Every pawn is a potential Queen." James Mason

"Help your pieces so they can help you." Paul Morphy

"Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity." Vladimir Nabokov

"The isolated pawn casts gloom over the entire chessboard." Aaron Nimzovich

"Chess is the gymnasium of the mind." Blaise Pascal

"Chess is not like life... it has rules!" Mark Pasternak

"The pawn is the soul of chess." Francois-Andre Danican Philidor

"Pawns: they are the soul of this game, they alone form the attack and defense." Philidor

"Pawn endings are to chess what putting is to golf." Cecil Purdy

"If the student forces himself to examine all moves that smite, however absurd they may look at first glance, he is on the way to becoming a master of tactics." Cecil Purdy

"One cannot play chess if one becomes aware of the pieces as living souls and of the fact that the Whites and the Blacks have more in common with each other than with the players. Suddenly one loses all interest in who will be champion." Anatol Rapoport

"The pin is mightier than the sword." Reinfeld

"Chess is a fighting game which is purely intellectual and includes chance." Richard Reti

"If a ruler does not understand chess, how can he rule over a kingdom?" Sassanian King of Kings, Khusros

"Chess is a cold bath for the mind." Sir John Simon

"Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine." Rudolf Spielman

"We cannot resist the fascination of sacrifice, since a passion for sacrifices is part of a chessplayer's nature." Rudolf Spielman

"Chess is so inspiring that I do not believe a good player is capable of having an evil thought during the game." Wilhelm Steinitz

"To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game." GM Savielly Tartakover (1887-1956)

"Between the opening and endgame the gods have placed the middlegame." Siegbert Tarrasch

"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!" Tarrasch

"All chessplayers should have a hobby." Savielly Tartakower

"Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders." Savielly Tartakower

"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, Life on Mississippi

"...for chess, that superb, cold, infinitely satisfying anodyne to life, I feel the ardour of a lover, the humility of a disciple." Herbert Russel Wakefield

"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

"No one ever won a game by resigning" Unknown

"A Computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing." - Emo Philips

"Karpov’s strongest point, and maybe his weakest, is that he doesn’t look for the best move."

- Garry Kasparov

I had dinner with Garry Kasparov the other night

There was a checkered table cloth,It took him 2 hours to pass me the salt. 

Nice one thanks!

There are two Laskers to know about in chess. Edward Lasker supplies us with the next truism.

A single exposure [to chess] is apt to make an addict of anyone with a sense of adventure.

Edward also supplied this next one, which I have often mentioned to others, though I have not verified its veracity. But when you find a quote like this, you really don’t care whether it’s true or false, you just want to share it.

An intriguing phenomenon which links mathematics, music, and chess is the fact that child prodigies have been known in only these three fields.

The computer age has arrived, and it influences everything: analysis, preparation, information. Now a different talent is required - the ability to synthesize ideas. - Boris Spassky

When asked, "How is that you pick better moves than your opponents?", I responded: I'm very glad you asked that, because, as it happems, there is a very simple answer. I think up my own moves, and I make my opponent think up his." - Alekhine

Nature supplies the game of chess with its implements; science with its system; art with its aesthetic arrangement of its problems; and God endows it with its blessed power of making people happy.

- Weiss

The best chess masters of every epoch have been closely linked with the values of the society in which they lived and worked. All the changes of a cultural, political, and psychological background are reflected in the style and ideas of their play.

- Garry Kasparov

Some people think that if their opponent plays a beautiful game, it’s OK to lose. I don’t. You have to be merciless.

- Magnus Carlsen

"Oh! this opponent, this collaborator against his will, whose notion of Beauty always differs from yours and whose means (strength, imagination, technique) are often too limited to help you effectively! What torment, to have your thinking and your fantasy tied down by another person!"

- Alexander Alekhine

"There are some things we do much better than computers, but since most of chess is tactically based they do many things better than humans. And this imbalance remains. I no longer have any issues. It’s bit like asking an astronomer, does he mind that a telescope does all the work. He is used to it. It is just an incredible tool that you can use."

- Viswanathan Anand

It was an impressive achievement, of course, and a human achievement by the members of the IBM team, but Deep Blue was only intelligent the way your programmable alarm clock is intelligent. Not that losing to a $10 million alarm clock made me feel any better.

- Garry Kasparov

Voltaire said once that he was ruined twice, once when he lost a lawsuit, and once when he won one. In the same way, a beginner at chess must get somewhat discouraged, for he loses if he accepts a sacrificed piece, but he also loses if he declines it.

- Tony Santasiere

Chess is a contributor to net human unhappiness, since the pleasure of victory is greatly exceeded by the pain of defeat.

- Bill Hartston

The good thing in chess is that very often the best moves are the most beautiful ones. The beauty of logic.

- Boris Gelfand

GM Naiditsch reckoned that me playing the King's Indian against Anand was something akin to a samurai running at a machine gun with a sword.

- Hikaru Nakamura

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

I remember once I was in Switzerland and my wife told me,'I put some of your stuff in the safe – the code is very easy to remember, it’s 2706, so you can take whatever you need.' And I told her, 'Well, 2706 is not really a good Elo rating. Normally it’s rounded off to the nearest 5 or 10'. So I told her I couldn’t see how I could remember that. She looked a bit shocked and then she explained to me that the 27th June is our anniversary.

- Viswanathan Anand

Losing can persuade you to change what doesn't need to be changed, and winning can convince you everything is fine even if you are on the brink of disaster.

- Garry Kasparov

To play for a draw, at any rate with white, is to some degree a crime against chess.

- Mikhail Tal (The Tactician)

A strong player requires only a few minutes of thought to get to the heart of the conflict. You see a solution immediately, and half an hour later merely convince yourself that your intuition has not deceived you.

- David Bronstein

Most players ... do not like losing, and consider defeat as something shameful. This is a wrong attitude. Those who wish to perfect themselves must regard their losses as lessons and learn from them what sorts of things to avoid in the future.

- Jose Capablanca

Truth derives its strength not so much from itself as from the brilliant contrast it makes with what is only apparently true. This applies especially to Chess, where it is often found that the profoundest moves do not much startle the imagination.

- Emanuel Lasker