The game gives us a satisfaction that Life denies us. And for the Chess player, the success which crowns his work, the great dispeller of sorrows, is named 'combination'.

I have known many chess players, but among them there has been only one genius - Capablanca!

The laws of chess do not permit a free choice: you have to move whether you like it or not.

Show me three lines of the opening theory moves and I will prove to you that two of them are incorrect.

A chess game, after all, is a fight in which all possible factors must be made use of, and in which a knowledge of the opponent's good and bad qualities is of the greatest importance.

I believe in magic ... There is magic in the creative faculty such as great poets and philosophers conspicuously possess, and equally in the creative chessmaster.

By what right does White, in an absolutely even position, such as after move one, when both sides have advanced 1. e4, sacrifice a pawn, whose recapture is quite uncertain, and open up his kingside to attack? And then follow up this policy by leaving the check of the black queen open? None whatever!