Quotes

This is a compilation of quotes from books, thoughts, movie lines or anecdotal recitals. They have significance because of the originator, if it is funny, or it was particularly profound or prophetic. They were all hand picked. This is a very eclectic collection. Most of these are pretty rare. These quotes are courtesy of Frank and Jim Berry out of Stillwater, Oklahoma. You may check out their good work here.

"We like to think."
Gary Kasparov, asked by Hans Ree why he and Karpov get into time trouble so often.

"They asked me what year it was, what month it was, etc. I easily answered these stupid questions."
Bobby Fischer, 'I was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse!', 1982

"Poor Capablanca! What a brilliant technician, but no philosopher. He was not capable of believing that in chess, another style could be victorious other than his which he considered the only absolutely correct style."
Max Euwe, Tijdschrift van den Nederlandschen Schaakbond, 1942

"In chess, as it is played by masters, chance is practically eliminated."
Emanuel Lasker, 'Brettspiele der Völker', 1930

"It is always better to sacrifice your opponent's men."
Savielly Tartakower

"Nowadays, when you're not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it."
Anand Vishwanathan

"For me, this personality, notwithstanding his fundamentally optimistic attitude, had a tragic note. The enormous mental resilience, without which no chess player can exist, was so much taken up by chess that he could never free his mind of this game, even when he was occupied by philosophical and humanitarian questions."
Albert Einstein, in his foreword to Hannak's biography of Emmanuel Lasker

"It has been said that man is distinguished from animal in that he buys more books than he can read. I should like to suggest that the inclusion of a few chess books would help to make the distinction unmistakable."
Edward Lasker, 'The Adventure of Chess', 1949

"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 annihilates a man. You have, let us say, a promising politician, a rising artist that you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic and unreliable - but teach him, inoculate him with chess."
H.G. Wells, 'Certain Personal Matters', 1898

"The most intelligent people aren't necessarily the best chess players, and the best chess players aren't necessarily intelligent."
"I've always studied chess by myself, never had a chess teacher or trainer. I learned from books almost entirely by studying master games."
"I moved to L.A. in 1976 because I liked the weather and I wanted to face new and stronger opponents. I got tired of playing in New England and against John Curdo, whom I played 45 times."
IM Jack Peters, Interview in CL 2/78 p. 72

"After I resigned this game with perfect self-control and solemnly shook hands with my opponent in the best of Anglo Saxon traditions, I rushed home, where I threw myself onto my bed, howling and screaming, and pulled the blankets over my face..."
GM Jan H. Donner

"It is my practice to spend the major part of my allotted time on the first fifteen or twenty moves of a tournament game. As a consequence, I am often forced to play at breakneck speed to avoid overstepping the limit. After such a game, I am frequently asked why I took so long considering "obvious" moves. That's a question to which I am able to give a partial answer. To a chess master, there is no such thing as an 'obvious' move. Experience has shown repeatedly that wins or draws are thrown away by thoughtless play. Careful planning is the essence of chess strategy. Every move must be scrutinized with care. Each must be analyzed in the light of the plan under consideration. Nowhere is waste of time more severely punished than in chess."
Sammy Reshevsky 1948

"After looking at my early games with a computer, I realized that neither I, nor my opponents saw anything!?"
GM Lev Psakhis 1995 (twice USSR Champion)

"An important modification needs to be made to the received version of the Steinitz's teachings, which suggest that you should attack when you are better and defend when you are worse. You must also attack where you are better, and defend where you are worse. If, when you are under pressure on one side of the board, you decline to create pressure on the other side of the board, then you will lose the initiative on that side of he board, and the attacker will dominate the game."
Colin Crouch, in his new book: "How to defend in Chess, Learn from the World Champs"

Scandal has already smeared baseball, football and basketball. The only sports we can still trust are chess contests and marble tournaments.
New York Daily News 1951

"The game of chess is the touchstone of the intellect."
Goethe

"1. Do not make aimless moves 2. Do not play quickly 3. Avoid obvious oversights 4. Do not play to win a pawn at the cost of weakening your position 5. Try to maintain your King pawn and Queen pawn (and, if possible, the two Bishop pawns) on their fourth squares 6. When you have a good move, look for a better one."
Damiano General advice, given in his book "Questo Libro e da imparare giucare a scachi", published in 1512

"Pawns are the soul of the game. They alone create attack and defense, the way they are deployed decides the fate of the game."
André Philidor

"When you have an advantage, you are obliged to attack, otherwise you are endangered to lose the advantage."
Wilhelm Steinitz

"Everybody can play well in better positions, but to be a good player it is necessary to also play well in bad positions."
Emanuel Lasker

"Some consider that when I play I am excessively cautious, but it seems to me that the question may be a different one. I try to avoid chance. Those who rely on chance should play cards or roulette...Chess is something quite different."
"Although to many this seems strange, in general I consider that in chess everything rests on tactics. If one thinks of strategy as a block of marble, then tactics are the chisel with which a master operates, in creating works of chess art"
Tigran Petrosian

"At the highest level, chess is a talent to control unrelated things. It is like controlling chaos."
Gary Kasparov

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein

"When a good position begins to collapse, it normally collapses not into equality, but into ruins. The mistakes are all there, waiting to be made."
"The ability to play good chess is not a sign of great intelligence, but a sign of great intelligence gone the wrong way!"
George Bernard Shaw

"The greatest skill in chess lies in not allowing the opponent to show you what he can do."
Garry Kasparov

"To make effective use of superiority in material is one of the most important things which a student must learn. He cannot practice it enough."
Nimzovitch

Lack of patience is probably the most common reason for losing a game, or drawing a game that should have been won.
GM Bent Larsen

"Chess is a form of intellectual productiveness, therein lies its peculiar charm. Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy."
Siegbert Tarrasch

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
Barry LePatner

Experience teaches you to recognize a mistake when you've made it again. The trouble with using experience as a guide is that the final exam often comes first and then the lesson.
Unknown

In fact, research has shown that tournament chess takes an extraordinary toll on the body; blood pressure and breathing rates rise during a game, and a study at Temple University found that a chess player expends as much energy as a football player or boxer.
The New Yorker, June 4, 2001 p. 72

Editor's Pick
"Chess is art. Chess is sport. But it's also war. You have to master on the order of a hundred thousand different chess ideas and concepts, patterns of pawns and pieces. That takes work. And you're going to lose a lot of games in the process, so you'll have to be able to make your peace with that, which isn't easy. Because there is no luck involved in the game, you have to face the fact that you lost because your opponent outwitted you. Ninety per cent of my students give up on tournament chess when they get into junior high school and the main reason is that they can't stand losing. There are other reasons too, like they discover girls."
Bruce Pandolfini, interview in New Yorker 6-4-01 p.73

"Adults with hobbies that exercise their brains - such as reading, jigsaw puzzles or chess - are 2 1/2 times less likely to have Alzheimer's disease, while leisure limited to TV watching may increase the risk, a study says...."
WASHINGTON (AP)

Bruce: You have no idea what I want. What is chess, do you think? Those who play for fun or not at all dismiss it as a game. The ones who devote their lives to it for the most part insist that it's a science. It's neither. Bobby Fischer got underneath it like no one before and found at its center, art. I spent my life trying to play like him. Most of these guys have. But we're like forgers. We're competent fakes.
Fred: He's better at this than I've ever been at anything in my life. He's better at this than you'll ever be, at anything. My son has a gift. He has a gift, and when you acknowledge that, then maybe we will have something to talk about..
Bruce: Do you know what it means to have "contempt" for your opponent?
Josh: No.
Bruce: It means to hate them. You have to hate them Josh, they hate you.
Josh: But I don't hate them.
Bruce: Well you'd better start.
Searching for Bobby Fischer 1993

"GM Yasser Seirawan loves to reach positions where he can promote his pawns. In fact GM Benjamin once remarked to Wolff that Yasser likes to promote his pawns even when he is checkmated! A few days after this Wolff told the same funny story to Yasser.. 'That's not fair,' said Yasser 'it only happened once.' 'You mean it actually did happen?' replied Wolff. 'Well, many years ago..' began Seirawan, 'when I was a kid playing in my very first tournament, I was paired with a master. And just when I was about to promote my pawn, he checkmated me. But before he could say anything, I promoted my pawn to a king!' 'Did he tell you that was against the rules?' 'Nah.. He just checkmated my other king too, and that was that.'
GM Patrick Wolff from his book p.37 "Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess"

Editor's Pick
"My most embarrassing moment on the chessboard came at the New York Open about 1988. I saw a fascinating KID position where I spotted an interesting pawn sac for Black. I grabbed the arm of IM Michael Brooks of Kansas City, who was also glancing at the games being played, and asked him what he thought. He said nothing - and sat down at the board!! I could have died of embarrassment!"
GM Patrick Wolff, Kingpin #25, p. 4.

"On the Chess-board 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 p. 235 of his Manual

"Chess is life."
Bobby Fischer

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

"Tactics flow from a superior position."
Bobby Fischer

"The life of a chess master is much more difficult than that of an artist - much more depressing. An artist knows that someday there'll be recognition and monetary reward, but for the chess master there is little public recognition and absolutely no hope of supporting himself by his endeavors. If Bobby Fischer came to me for advice, I certainly would not discourage him - as if anyone could - but I would try to make it positively clear that he will never have any money from chess, live a monk-like existence and know more rejection than any artist ever has, struggling to be known and accepted."
Marcel Duchamp

"To win you have to risk loss."
Jean-Claude 'Killy

"Of all the personal qualities which are important at the board, determination is perhaps the most significant. Some players.see the gloom ahead of them, with only the distant prospect of at most half a point, and become despondent."
GM John Nunn

"It does not matter who gets the advantage out of the opening if one of the players is likely to lose a piece to a simple tactic in the middlegame. Losing a piece from an advantageous position will almost always result in a losing position. So study tactics, not openings, until you almost never lose pieces to simple tactical motifs."
Dan Heisman - columnist for Chesscafe.com

"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 1779

On Goals: "People see the goal, they set the goal, and then they don't enjoy themselves while they're doing it... we live our lives longer in the process than at the goals. You have to enjoy the path... For me, getting there is sweet, but I don't think it's any sweeter than the path."
GM Maurice Ashley

On Determination: "Every chess amateur wants to win. But the best players really WANT to win. They are focused on and firmly insist on getting what they desire, and do not back off when confronted with obstacles."
Amatzia Avni

"It's far more important not to do anything stupid than to create brilliant combinations."
GM Larry Evans

"Chess is a creative process. Its purpose is to find the truth. To discover the truth, you must be uncompromising. You must be brave."
Bruce Pandolfini

"The player who plays best in a tournament never wins first, he wins second and finishes behind the player with the most luck..."
Tartakower

"A lot of the difference between an IM and GM is a seriousness to the game. The GM is willing to go through all this. He's willing to put up with anything. This shows his dedication. One other thing is the GMs superiority in tactics. For example Christiansen can find tactics in any position. If you're a GM you should be able to overpower the IM tactically. The GM will often blow out the IM in this area. "
GM Nick deFirmian

"There is really only one mistake in chess - underestimating your opponent. All else is either bad luck or weakness."
Savielly Tartakower

"What distinguishes a Grandmaster from a master? Chess-lovers often ask questions like that. To many people it seems that Grandmasters simply calculate variations a little deeper. Or that they know their opening theory slightly better. But in fact the real difference is something else. You can pick out two essential qualities in which those with higher titles are superior to others: the ability to sense the critical moment in a game, and a finer understanding of various positional problems."
GM Yusupov

"The polarity is clear. When you teach, you're trying to help someone (the student), and when you play, you're trying to hurt someone (the opponent). Both of these deleterious conditions - being too sympathetic while playing and becoming too antipathetic while teaching - are exacerbated by the fact that they tend to exist on the unconscious level."
Bruce Pandolfini

"At Harvard, Chris Chabris, a postdoc in psychology and a master himself, studies the minds of chess players. 'There are two common views about what makes people really good at chess,' Chabris said. 'The first is that masters are smarter and have better memories, and the second is that they are calculating machines-that they think way ahead, exploring hundreds or thousands of possible continuations, while mere mortal players look at only a few. Neither view is right." What matters most is chess knowledge, or pattern recognition. Even though a chess master may spend a lot of time thinking, in some 19 out of 20 positions on the board, he ends up making the first move that pops into his head. That explains why a master, when he is playing many games simultaneously and has no choice but to move quickly, can still reel off strong moves. Some thinking time, of course, is important. In Chabris's own research, he found that in classical chess (where each side has two hours for the first 40 moves) strong masters make roughly 10 blunders per 1,000 positions, whereas in rapid chess (25 minutes apiece for the entire game) the rate of errors is 14 per 1,000.'"
Paul Hoffman , from an article in Harvard Magazine http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/1102196.html

"It may look as though two chess players are sitting at the board peacefully calculating possibilities, but in actuality they are seething with a kaleidoscope of emotions."
Swami Shankaranda

"Once you get mated, it's very difficult to come back from there.."
Dzhinshihashvili

"Remember that winning is not the only result in a game. Sometimes it may be just as important to avoid losing."
Loal Davis

"The most important years for a developing chess player are between 12 and 14. What I learned in an hour then now takes me a week of study.."
GM Alex Shabalov - during a recent talk at the San Francisco Mechanics' Institute Chess Club

"Chess is played with the mind and not with the hands!"
Renaud and Kahn

"I think it's almost definite that the game is a draw theoretically."
Fischer

"Pawn endings are to chess what putting is to golf."
C. J. S. Purdy

"Chess is matter of timing. It's not enough to play the right move, you've got to play it at the right moment. Restraint is one of the most difficult things for the average chess player to learn."
Bobby Fischer

"My father taught me how to play chess at seven and introduced beautiful concepts that I try to pass on to my kids. The elements and concepts of life are so perfectly illustrated on a chessboard. The ability to accurately assess your position is the key to chess, which I also think is the key to life." He pauses, searching for an example. "Everything you do in your life is a move. You wake up in the morning and you walk out on the street - that's a move. You've made a move and the universe is going to respond with its move. Whatever move you're going to make in your life to be successful, you have to accurately access the next couple of moves - like what's going to happen if you do this? Because once you've made your move, you can't take it back. The universe is going to respond."
Will Smith, from an interview with the Oscar nominated actor

On Losing:
"It is terrible to lose. The defeat causes deep pain. Every time when it happens to me I punish myself mentally and think about the whole game in my mind: Where is my mistake?"
Man versus machine:
"I am quite sure that the best man, on his best day, is still capable of beating the machine. It is going to continue for a long time. When I say the best man I mean four or five players in the world. I have proved to be one of them."
Fame:
"It is good to be a celebrity. You make money, eat the best food, stay in the best hotel and, in my case, I have freedom of speech."
Enemies:
"I have been at the top for a long time so I have many enemies. Many people hate it when I win but I don't care about my opponents. If I play well I win. No one is at my level."
Kasparov

"The turning point in my career came with the realization that Black should play to win instead of just steering for equality."
Bobby Fischer

"Chess is an incredibly emotional game. If everything around you is harmonious, when you are feeling good, you are in a creative mood. If something is disturbing you and you are in a bad mood, then it is difficult to be creative. So you have to create the right atmosphere."
Vlad Kramnik

"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

"You get better (and your rating eventually goes up) when you learn something new or when you identify a mistaken idea and no longer repeat it -- not when you win a bunch of games."
Unknown

"The key aspect in chess is not to stick with a positional or a tactical style, but to be able to spot the right time in your game to switch from positional to tactical and vice versa."
Movses Movsisyan

"Chess is in many ways like life itself. It's all condensed in a playful manner in a game format and it's extremely fascinating because first of all I'm in control of my own destiny, I'm in charge. You have to be responsible for your actions, you make a move, you had better think ahead about what's going to happen, not after it happens, because then it's too late. Chess teaches discipline from a very early age. It teaches you to have a plan and to plan ahead. If you do that, you'll be rewarded; if you break the rules, you will get punished-in life and in chess. You need to learn the rules before you break the rules."
GM Susan Polgar

"It is important for girls to know and understand that they can be beautiful, feminine, graceful and charming but play a mean and tough game on the chessboard."
Susan Polgar

Editor's Pick
When asked by a reporter after a winning a large prestigious European chess tournament for the 3rd time, "Why are you considered the best chess player in history?" Garry Kasparov replied, "It's simple. It's because I've lost more games than anyone in the history of the sport." (editor's note: Actually, somebody researched this fact by published tournaments.  Anatoly Karpov actually deserves that title, but the significance of the quote is well taken)