Education in Chess has to be an education in independent thinking and judging. Chess must not be memorized.

Having 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.

By positional play a master tries to prove and exploit true values, whereas by combinations he seeks to refute false values ... A combination produces an unexpected re-assessment of values.

In mathematics, if I find a new approach to a problem, another mathematician might claim that he has a better, more elegant solution. In chess, if anybody claims he is better than I, I can checkmate him.

The delight in gambits is a sign of chess youth... In very much the same way as the young man, on reaching his manhood years, lays aside the Indian stories and stories of adventure, and turns to the psychological novel, we with maturing experience leave off gambit playing and become interested in the less vivacious but withal more forceful manoeuvres of the position player.

The range of circumstances in which it is possible to presuppose the presence of a combination is very limited. The presence of such circumstances is the reason for the genesis of the idea in the master's brain.

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.