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"
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
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
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
Check and mate! Now king me!
HOMER SIMPSON
The Simpsons
Chess is a wooden or ivory allegory.
CHATFIELD
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
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 EWART NAPIER
attributed, Chess: The Sixty Four Stratagems
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
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
Chess is no whit inferior to the violin, and we have a large number of professional violinists.
MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK
attributed, Think Like a Grandmaster
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
For a game it is too serious, for seriousness too much of a game.
MOSES MENDELSSOHN
attributed, Total Chess
Chess is just a game. Real people are not pieces. You can't assign more value to some of them and not others. Not to me. Not to anyone. People are not a thing that you can sacrifice. The lesson is, anyone who looks on to the world as if it is a game of chess, deserves to lose.
HAROLD FINCH
Person of Interest
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
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
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
This game the Persian Magi did invent,
The force of Eastern wisdom to express:
From thence to busy Europeans sent,
And styled by modern Lombards pensive chess.
SIR J. DENHAM
"An Occasional Imitation of a Modern Author Upon the Game of Chess"
Chess makes men wiser and clear-sighted.
VLADIMIR PUTIN
attributed, "50 Greatest Chess Quotes Of All Time"