The passion for playing chess is one of the most unaccountable in the world. It slaps the theory of natural selection in the face. It is the most absorbing of occupations. The least satisfying of desires. A nameless excrescence upon life. It annihilates a man. You have, let us say, a promising politician, a rising artist that you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic and unreliable - but teach him, inoculate him with chess.

It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.

Losing your way on a journey is unfortunate. But, losing your reason for the journey is a fate more cruel.

This has ever been the fate of energy in security; it takes to art and to eroticism, and then comes languor and decay.

There is no more evil thing in this world than race prejudice, none at all. [...] It justifies and holds together more baseness, cruelty, and abomination than any other sort of error in the world.

Let us get together with other people of our sort and make over the world into a great world-civilization that will enable us to realize the promises and avoid the dangers of this new time.

Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough---as most wrong theories are!