By some ardent enthusiasts Chess has been elevated into a science or an art. It is neither; but its principal characteristic seems to be - what human nature mostly delights in - a fight.
Emanuel LaskerOn the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in the checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite.
Emanuel LaskerShow me three lines of the opening theory moves and I will prove to you that two of them are incorrect.
Emanuel LaskerHaving spent 200 hours on the above, the young player, even if he possesses no special talent for chess, is likely to be among those two or three thousand chessplayers [who play on a par with a master]. There are, however, a quarter of a million chessplayers who annually spend no fewer than 200 hours on chess without making any progress. Without going into any further calculations, I can assert with a high degree of certainty that nowadays we achieve only a fraction of what we are capable of achieving.
Emanuel Lasker