Portal:Chess/Quotes archive
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[edit] July 15, 2007 to August 31, 2007
- In complicated positions, Bobby Fischer hardly had to be afraid of anybody. — Estonian Grandmaster Paul Keres, on the middlegame calculation prowess of American Grandmaster and world champion Bobby Fischer
- Chess is in its essence a game, in its form an art, and in its execution a science. — German chess theoretician, historian, and master Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa, on the multiple natures of chess
- Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where kings don't expect them to be. — English author Terry Pratchet, in his 1992 novel Small Gods
- Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make people happy. — German chess theoretician and master Siegbert Tarrasch, on the capacity of chess to inspire and delight
- 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. — American Grandmaster and psychology author Reuben Fine
- Chess makes man wiser and clear-sighted. — Russian President Vladimir Putin
[edit] May 28, 2007 to June 10, 2007; June 20, 2007 to June 24, 2007; September 1, 2007 to September 30, 2007
- Amberly excelled at chess—one mark, Watson, of a scheming mind. — Fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, to fictional friend Doctor John Watson, in Scottish author Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Retired Colourman
- The great master places a knight at e5; checkmate follows by itself. — French (né Polish) Grandmaster Savielly Tartakower, on the import of controlling the center of the chessboard
- [Chess is] as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency. — American-British author Raymond Chandler, on the recondite complexity of chess, in his 1953 The Long Goodbye
- If the distinguishing feature of a genius is that he is far ahead compared with his epoch, then Morphy was a chess genius in the complete sense of the word. — Dutch Grandmaster and world chess champion Max Euwe, on nineteenth century American chess master Paul Morphy
- Chess is the game which reflects most honour on human wit. — French essayist Voltaire
- [F]or chess, that superb, cold, infinitely satisfying anodyne to life, I feel the ardor of a lover, the humility of a disciple. — English novelist Herbert Russell Wakefield
[edit] April 21, 2007 to May 13, 2007
- Chess is the only game greater than its players. — English lyricist Tim Rice in Chess, on the putative complexity and majesty of chess
- Chess is a foolish experiment for making idle people believe they are doing something clever, when they are only wasting their time. — Irish playwright and essayist George Bernard Shaw
- Chess is thriving. There are even [fewer] round-robin tournaments and even more world champions. — German Grandmaster Robert Hübner, jocularly, on the 1993 championship split and its progeny and the favoring of two-player matches
- Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity. — Russian-American author and chess composer Vladimir Nabokov, in his 1969 Poems and Problems
- 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 middlegame and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame. — Cuban world champion José Raúl Capablanca
[edit] August 22, 2006 to April 21, 2007
- 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. — American philosopher, scientist, and author Benjamin Franklin
- The point is that chess doesn’t have a strict criterion of correctness. Chess is a multiform game! — Danish Grandmaster Bent Larsen
- Place the contents of the chess box in a hat, shake them up vigorously, pour them on the board from a height of two feet, and you get the style of Steinitz. — English chess theorist and author Henry Bird, on the unique attacking style and emphasis on pawn structure and space, as against on traditional chess strategies, of American (né Austrian) world champion Wilhelm Steinitz
- 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...I have come to the personal conclusion that, while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists. — French surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp, on the other-than-mathematical quality of chess
- He has a profound liking for ugly opening moves. — German chess master and theorist Siegbert Tarrasch, on Danish chess master Aron Nimzowitsch and his favoring of hypermodern chess openings, especially those involving the fianchettoing of bishops, as explicated in his Mein System
- After we have paid our dutiful respects to such frigid virtues as calculation, foresight, self-control and the like, we always come back to the thought that speculative attack is the lifeblood of chess. — American author Fred Reinfeld, on the value of players' essaying gambits and sacrifices
- I regard the current time control as ideal, and I believe it should remain unaffected. We play good serious chess and besides we have rapid chess and blitz tournaments. More activities should be organized of the latter type as they provide a great show for spectators. However, tournaments with classical time control should form the backbone, in order to prevent a decline in the level of performance. FIDE intends to make chess a shabby and elementary sport...Chess will never be more popular than either soccer or tennis, because this game is too complex. In order to enjoy it, a spectator should know some rudiments of the sport. In chess, this level is quite high...Mass spectators will always seek after simpler and more spectacular sports. — Russian Grandmaster and world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik, on the preferring by the chess governing authority of quicker chess games, in part in view of a desire to expand Internet and television viewership of tournaments
Image:Vladimir Kramnik 2005.jpg
- To win in this championship you have to emerge alive from a river infested with crocodiles. — Indian Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand, on the difficulty of a top-seeded player's navigating the draw of the seven-round knockout 2000 World Chess Championship
- Unsurprisingly, as player gains more and more experience, trying his best to analyze and evaluate, he gains proficiency. Pattern recognition, the storehouse of similar situations in a player's recollection, is the Rosetta Stone that eventually makes the process possible. Good books on strategy are a key vitamin supplement, but the training diet must include experience. — American (né Russian) Grandmaster Lev Alburt, on the necessity of a player's contesting matches in addition to studying theory
[edit] July 24 to August 22, 2006
- Chess is not dominoes. — Russian Grandmaster and former world champion Garry Kasparov, on the unsound quality of the Grob's Attack, an irregular chess opening in which the player with the white pieces begins the game by moving his king's knight's pawn two squares (1 g4)
- Chess is a cure for headaches. — British economist John Maynard Keynes
- If chess is an art, Alekhine. If chess is a science, Capablanca. If chess is a struggle, Lasker. — French (né Polish) Grandmaster Savielly Tartakower, enumerating former world champions Russian Alexander Alekhine (pictured), Cuban José Raúl Capablanca, and German Emanuel Lasker in reply to a query as to whom Tartakower thought to be the best-ever player
- When one plays with Morphy the sensation is as queer as the first electric shock, or first love, or chloroform, or any entirely novel experience. — English chess theorist and author Henry Bird, on the unique combinative skill of American chess master Paul Morphy
- Chess is thirty to forty percent psychology. You don't have this when you play a computer. I can't confuse it. — Hungarian Grandmaster and world's top-ranked player Judit Polgár, on the problems encountered in playing leading chess computers
- We all view ourselves as Botvinnik's pupils, and further generations will learn by his games. — Soviet Grandmaster Tigran Petrosian, on countrymate Mikhail Botvinnik, whom Petrosian defeated to win the world championship and who would later instruct world champion Russian Grandmasters Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, and Vladimir Kramnik
- In chess, at least, the brave inherit the earth. — Latvian Grandmaster Edmar Mednis, on the propensity of countrymate world champion Grandmaster Mikhail Tal to essay bold sacrifices
- Chess is a game of understanding, not memory. — Russian chess master and author Eugene Znosko-Borovsky, lamenting the frequency with which games were decided in view of a player's memorizing opening lines
[edit] June 25 to July 24, 2006
- In blitz, the knight is stronger than the bishop. – Czech Grandmaster Vlastimil Hort
- Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity. – Russian author Vladimir Nabokov
- In chess, as it is played by masters, chance is practically eliminated. – German world champion Emanuel Lasker
- The passion for playing chess is one of the most unaccountable in the world. It slaps the theory of natural selection in the face. It is the most absorbing of occupations. The least satisfying of desires. A nameless excrescence upon life. It annhilates a man. You have, let us say, a promising politician, a rising artist [whom] you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic and unreliable but teach him, inoculate him with chess. – British author H.G. Wells
- Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack. – Austrian world champion Wilhelm Steinitz
- Excellence at chess is one mark of a scheming mind. – British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Chess was Capablanca's mother tongue. – Austrian-Hungarian hypermodernist theoretician Richard Réti, on Cuban world champion José Raúl Capablanca, whose eight-year unbeaten streak Réti ended in 1925
[edit] May 26 to June 25, 2006
- "Chess is eminently and emphatically the philosopher's game." — Paul Morphy
- "Chess is the touchstone of intellect." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- "Nowadays, if you're not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget it." — Viswanathan Anand
- "During a chess competition, a chess master should be a combination of a beast of prey and a monk." — Alexander Alekhine
[edit] January 26 to May 26, 2006
- "Chess is eminently and emphatically the philosopher's game." — Paul Morphy
- "Chess is the touchstone of intellect." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[edit] August 20, 2005 to January 26, 2006
- "Chess is in its essence a game, in its form an art, and in its execution a science." — Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa
- "The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena 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." — Thomas Huxley
- "Chess is mental torture." — Garry Kasparov
[edit] July 12 to August 20, 2005
- "Of chess it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is the fault of life, not chess." — Irving Chernev
- "I'd rather have a pawn than a finger." — Reuben Fine
- "It all depends: which pawn and which finger?" — Roman Dzindzichashvili