No pawn exchanges, no file-opening, no attack.

How is it to be explained that something inside me revolts against the playing of obvious moves? Perhaps we may perceive the underlying reason in the fact that I derive satisfaction from seeking to reveal the concealed meaning of a position by means of maneuvering play and therefore I do not wish to see this satisfaction curtailed by a banal, more or less fortuitous decision. Naturally, this phenomenon is played out beneath the threshold of consciousness. The waking consciousness will, of course, in each individual case, give preference to the more rapid means of deciding the game.

The main Objective of any operation in an open file is the eventual Occupation of the seventh or eighth Rank.

Do not always be thinking of attack! Moves that safeguard your position are often far more prudent.

Giving up the center must not here be regarded as illogical. Was happiness no happiness because it endured for just a short time? One cannot always be happy.

The threat is stronger than the execution.

When I today ask myself whence I got the moral courage, for it takes moral courage to make a move (or form a plan) running counter to all tradition, I think I may say in answer, that it was only my intense preoccupation with the problem of the blockade which helped me to do so.