Popular quotes about Chess! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
I love chess, and I didn't invent Fischerandom chess to destroy chess. I invented Fischerandom chess to keep chess going. Because I consider the old chess is dying, it really is dead. A lot of people have come up with other rules of chess-type games, with 10x8 boards, new pieces, and all kinds of things. I'm really not interested in that. I want to keep the old chess flavor. I want to keep the old chess game. But just making a change so the starting positions are mixed, so it's not degenerated down to memorisation and prearrangement like it is today.
Bobby FischerI object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing.
Bobby FischerA sport, a struggle for results and a fight for prizes. I think that the discussion about "chess is science or chess is art" is already inappropriate. The purpose of modern chess is to reach a result.
Alexander MorozevichBut the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt. He [Capablanca] wanted to change the rules [of chess] already, back in the twenties, because he said chess was getting played out. He was right. Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorisation and prearrangement. It's a terrible game now. Very uncreative.
Bobby FischerChess teaches foresight, by having to plan ahead; vigilance, by having to keep watch over the whole chess board; caution, by having to restrain ourselves from making hasty moves; and finally, we learn from chess the greatest maxim in life - that even when everything seems to be going badly for us we should not lose heart, but always hoping for a change for the better, steadfastly continue searching for the solutions to our problems.
Benjamin FranklinThe Indians and Chinese have become brilliant chess professionals. They get on a plane and play all over the world. This has led to dramatic pressure on incomes. Nowadays, the best chess player in Argentina can no longer make a living playing chess.
Kenneth RogoffCombinations 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 FineThe concept of 'talent' is formed under completely abstract criteria, having nothing in common with reality. But the reality is such that I don't understand chess as a whole. But then again no one understands chess in its entirety. Perhaps talent is something else, in chess it is conditionality.
Alexander MorozevichChess is a unique battlefield for human minds and computers - human intuition, our creativity, fantasy, our logic, versus the brute force of calculation and a very small portion of accumulated knowledge infused by other human beings. So in chess we can compare these two incompatible things and probably make projections into our future. Is there danger that the human mind will be overshadowed by the power of computers, or we can still survive?
Garry KasparovOne interesting indication of Capablanca's greatness is that to non-chess players his name was better known than the names of all other chess masters together! This was due partly to his engaging personality and distinguished appearance: he was one of those exceptional people who at once stand out in a crowd.
Fred ReinfeldI play chess about four hours a day in training camp. You have to decide what move to use, or what combination of moves. I think less when I box because the reaction time is a lot quicker, but some people call me the chess boxer because they say I think too much in the ring. I take my time and they don't see the action they want. Some boxers just go in there and just throw punches and hope to win.
Lennox LewisBy all means examine the games of the great chess players, but don't swallow them whole. Their games are valuable not for their separate moves, but for their vision of chess, their way of thinking.
Anatoly KarpovThe first chess book that I read was Dufresne's self-tutor, published with Lasker's Common Sense in Chess as an appendix.
Vasily SmyslovWhen I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties - before he died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak about any chess player like that, before or since.
Bobby FischerThe best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all those more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind.
Edgar Allan PoeBotvinnik tried to take the mystery out of Chess, always relating it to situations in ordinary life. He used to call chess a typical inexact problem similar to those which people are always having to solve in everyday life.
Garry KasparovA game of chess holds many secrets. Fortunately! That is why we cannot clearly state whether chess is science, art, or a sport.
Garry KasparovI learned that fighting on the chess board could also have an impact on the political climate in the country.
Garry KasparovMost chess players know, thanks to the study of master games, that two bishops are stronger than two knights or than bishop and knight, though very few know the reason for this advantage and how to turn it to account.
Richard RetiBoxing and chess are similar. Itยs about the choice of means. Sometimes I need a pawn, a bishop or a knight to defeat my opponent. Itยs about finding the best way. A good boxer has to be variable. He doesnยt just need to know how to punch. He must also know how to protect himself, how to defend, how to avoid the opponentยs punches. Only a complete fighter can become champion.
Lennox LewisChess 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 KubrickThe most intelligent inspection of any number of fine paintings will not make the observer a painter, nor will listening to a number of operas make the hearer a musician, but good judges of music and painting may so be formed. Chess differs from these. The intelligent perusal of fine games cannot fail to make the reader a better player and a better judge of the play of others.
Emanuel LaskerIt's hard to explain what happens when jazz and punk fuse with a violin twist but it works. Probably because Anson Choi takes off his shirt while he's playing the saxophone. Whoever's not chatting up a Cadet or a girl from Darling House or playing chess with the guys is watching the band. I turn into a groupie.
Melina MarchettaSeem to be telling this, but really telling that. Three-dimensional writing, like three-dimensional chess. Nabokov was the other master of that. You could learn something from Nabokov on every page he ever wrote.
Donald E. WestlakeYou know I'm finished with the old chess because it's all just a lot of book and memorization you know.
Bobby FischerThe chess player who develops the ability to play two dozen boards at a time will benefit from learning to compress his or her analysis into less time.
Marilyn vos SavantOne thing I learned, with permission of the school committee of Indianapolis, was that when a tyrant or a government gets in trouble it wonders what to do. Declare war! Then nothing else matters. It's like chess; when in doubt, castle.
Kurt VonnegutIt's turns out to be much easier to simulate a grandmaster chess player than it is to simulate a 2-year-old.
Alison GopnikYou always have to be keeping track, especially in this scenario [ The Hateful Eight], of where everybody is. They're pieces on a chess board.
Quentin TarantinoYou don't have to be really good anymore to get good results. What's happening with Chess is that it's gradually losing its place as the par excellence of intellectual activity. Smart people in search of a challenging board game might try a game called Go.
Hans BerlinerSuppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of each of us would some day depend upon our winning or losing a game of chess. Do you not think that we should all consider it to be our primary duty to learn at least the names of the pieces and how to position them on the chessboard?
Aldous HuxleyThough I would have liked my chances in a rematch in 1998 if I were better prepared, it was clear then that computer superiority over humans in chess had always been just a matter of time.
Garry KasparovTo take charge of destiny means to play a very convoluted chess game on multiple levels of consciousness and existence.
Frederick LenzExpect change. Analyze the landscape. Take the opportunities. Stop being the chess piece; become the player. It's your move.
Tony RobbinsPhotography is a system of visual editing. At bottom, it is a matter of surrounding with a frame a portion of one's cone of vision, while standing in the right place at the right time. Like chess, or writing, it is a matter of choosing from among given possibilities, but in the case of photography the number of possibilities is not finite but infinite.
John SzarkowskiWe may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with? Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English.
Alan TuringSexiness, particularly in movies, is the chess game in the 'Thomas Crown Affair'. It's, it's, I don't know, but Faye Dunaway comes up a lot in that thinking. It's the subtlety of sexiness. The moment you try to be sexy, then it's not.
Daniel CraigIf in a battle, I seize a bit of debatable land with a handful of soldiers, without having done anything to prevent an enemy bombardment of the position, would it ever occur to me to speak of a conquest of the terrain in question? Obviously not. Then why should I do so in chess?
Aron Nimzowitsch...for chess, that superb, cold, infinitely satisfying anodyne to life, I feel the ardour of a lover, the humility of a disciple.
H. Russell Wakefield