A championship contender in the early twentieth century needed charisma and a knack for cultivating sponsorship, and Rubinstein was the epitome of the shy and unsocial chess player. Now matter how great his chess skills, he lacked the people skills to be a self-promoter and fund-raiser.
Garry KasparovKortchnoi's heritage is many-faceted - over the decades he has several times corrected and changed his style. But the main thing has invariably remained his search for chess truth.
Garry KasparovVladimir Putin mainly has friends in Europe among the extreme right, such as Marine Le Pen's Front National in France.
Garry KasparovI don't have enough information, and enough courage, to come up with a definite version of events. And I think it is too dangerous for me to do so.
Garry KasparovMany politicians in the West cling to the notion of a partnership with Russia. They want to include [Vladimir] Putin, make compromises and constantly negotiate new deals with him. But history has taught us that the longer we pursue appeasement and do nothing, the higher the price will be later on. Dictators don't ask "Why?" before they seize even more power. They ask: "Why not?"
Garry KasparovTo my surprise I found that when other top players in the precomputer age (before 1995, roughly) wrote about games in magazines and newspaper columns, they often made more mistakes in their annotations than the players had made at the board.
Garry KasparovWe know that for the last 300 or 400 years, the size of human bodies is growing. Now what happened is that we suddenly, in history, have the backward process. We have these great Greek athletes, we have ultra-powerful Roman soldiers. You look at the size of the Roman soldier who has to carry all this ammunition. You're talking about 300,000 Arnold Schwartzeneggers.
Garry Kasparov