Memorization of variations could be even worse than playing in a tournament without looking in the books at all.
Chess mastery essentially consists of analyzing Chess positions accurately
Before Geller we did not understand the King's Indian Defence.
A knight ending is really a pawn ending.
Chess is no whit inferior to the violin, and we have a large number of professional violinists
The triumph of the analytical movement, which formed in the '30's and '40's, was precisely what earned the Soviet masters the acclaim of chessplayers the world over. Unfortunately, it must also be noted that, for today's chessmasters, the watchword is practicality.