Whoever sees no other aim in the game than that of giving checkmate to one's opponent will never become a good Chess player

Poor Capablanca! Thou wert a brilliant technician, but no philosopher. Thou wert not capable of believing that in chess, another style could be victorious than the absolutely correct one.

Alekhine's real genius is in the preparation and construction of a position, long before combinations or mating attacks come into consideration at all.

The 'chess machine', by which admiring title he had been known, revealed the great drawback of a machine: it had not sufficient flexibility to adapt itself to altered circumstances.

Alekhine is a poet who creates a work of art out of something that would hardly inspire another man to send home a picture post card.

Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation

Capablanca did not apply himself to opening theory (in which he never therefore achieved much), but delved deeply into the study of end-games and other simple positions which respond to technique rather than to imagination.