A passed pawn increase in strength as the number of pieces on the board diminishes.

During the course of many years I have observed that a great number of doctors, lawyers, and important businessmen make a habit of visiting a chess club during the late afternoon or evening to relax and find relief from the preoccupations of their work.

Your Soviet players are cheating, losing the games on purpose to my rival, Botvinnik, in order to increase his points on the score. - (to Stalin in Moscow 1936 where he finished in 1st place, 1 point ahead of Botvinnik)

When you sit down to play a game you should think only about the position, but not about the opponent. Whether chess is regarded as a science, or an art, or a sport, all the same psychology bears no relation to it and only stands in the way of real chess.

I have not given any drawn or lost games, because I thought them inadequate to the purpose of the book.

As one by one I mowed them down, my superiority soon became apparent

Chess can never reach its height by following in the path of science ... Let us, therefore, make a new effort and with the help of our imagination turn the struggle of technique into a battle of ideas.