Quotes About Chess

Chess is more than a game or a mental training. It is a distinct attainment. I have always regarded the playing of chess and the accomplishment of a good game as an art, and something to be admired no less than an artist's canvas or the product of a sculptor's chisel. Chess is a mental diversion rather than a game. It is both artistic and scientific.

Chess is all about getting the king into check, you see. It's about killing the father. I would say that chess has more to do with the art of murder than it does with the art of war.

The middlegame I repeat is chess itself, chess with all its possibilities, its attacks, defences, sacrifices, etc.

One interesting indication of Capablanca's greatness is that to non-chess players his name was better known than the names of all other chess masters together! This was due partly to his engaging personality and distinguished appearance: he was one of those exceptional people who at once stand out in a crowd.

[Vladimir] Putin is more of a poker player. In poker, unlike chess, you can effectively compensate for a very weak hand by bluffing. There are fixed rules in chess, and no one knows how the game will end. Things are currently the other way around in Putin's realm. But it won't stay that way forever.

For me, Chess is life and every game is like a new life. Every chess player gets to live many lives in one lifetime.

He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It was a tricky ending, involving a couple of knights. 'White to play and mate in two moves.' Winston looked up at the portrait of Big Brother. White always mates, he thought with a sort of cloudy mysticism. Always, without exception, it is so arranged. In no chess problem since the beginning of the world has black ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal, unvarying triumph of Good over Evil? The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power. White always mates.

The first chess book that I read was Dufresne's self-tutor, published with Lasker's Common Sense in Chess as an appendix.

Chess is a form of intellectual productiveness, therein lies its peculiar charm. Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy.

When I was about six, I saw my elder siblings play chess and pestered my mother into teaching me. Very soon, I was beating everyone at home, and they thought it would be good to join a club. So my sister would take me to the Tal chess club on Thursdays and weekends.

Maybe if I didn't have the talent in chess I'd find the talent in something else. The only thing I know is that I have talent in chess, and I'm satisfied with that.

Chess is like body-building. If you train every day, you stay in top shape. It is the same with your brain - chess is a matter of daily training.

All this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess.

I don't know whether computers are improving the style of play, I know they are changing it. Chess has become a different game, one could say that computers have changed the world of chess. That is pretty clear.

Bobby Fischer has an enormous knowledge of chess and his familiarity with the chess literature of the USSR is immense.

A game of chess holds many secrets. Fortunately! That is why we cannot clearly state whether chess is science, art, or a sport.

I don't know if people know this but I am pretty good at chess. I was always on the chess team at school when I was younger.

Of chess it has often been said that life is not long enough for it - but that is the fault of life, not chess.

Like dogs who sniff each other when meeting, chess players have a ritual at first acquaintance: they sit down to play speed chess.

If you're playing a one-minute game, I could squeeze in five to six games before anybody walked by my cubicle. So I got really good at blitz, one-minute chess games. But that's kind of like the cheap chess version.

The days when it was possible to win a serious game only by merit of sporting character or depth of chess understanding have vanished forever. Chess knowledge has become dominant, bypassing all the other factors that contribute to success.

Earlier in my career, I never thought of boxing as a chess game, but I confirm that they are, in fact, very similar. You can plan your fights and strategy just like you would in chess.

Remorse has no place in a warrior's mind... A war is like a game of chess, Nicholaa. Every battle is like a well-thought-out move on the board. Once it begins, there shouldn't be any emotion involved whatsoever.

I learned that fighting on the chess board could also have an impact on the political climate in the country.

Throughout my chess career I sought out new challenges, looking for things no one had done before.

It is impossible to win gracefully at chess.

Chess is a miniature version of life. To be successful, you need to be disciplined, assess resources, consider responsible choices and adjust when circumstances change.

Life is like a game of chess. To win you have to make a move. Knowing which move to make comes with IN-SIGHT and knowledge, and by learning the lessons that are acculated along the way. We become each and every piece within the game called life!

He hated games they made the world look too simple. Chess, in particular, had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the king lounged about doing nothing. If only the pawns would've united ... the whole board could've been a republic in about a dozen moves.

Diabetes is passed that way -- over and down, like a knight in chess.

Being the undisputed world champion is a relief. We instituted a unified chess title, I am the absolute world champion.

I consider Mr. Morphy the finest chess player who ever existed. He is far superior to any now living, and would doubtless have beaten Labourdonnais himself. In all his games with me, he has not only played, in every instance, the exact move, but the most exact. He never makes a mistake; but, if his adversary commits the slightest error, he is lost.

The stomach is an essential part of the Chess master

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.

The truth is that throughout my careers in both chess and the martial arts, I often knew that my rivals were more naturally gifted than me - either with their mental machines or their bodies. But I have believed in my training, my approach to learning, and my ability to rise to the challenge under pressure.

If you truly have expertise - and expertise can be say a chess master who has really mastered something or an artist or a musician of some sort you know if you give a jazz musician.

Look at a football field. It looks like a big movie screen. This is theatre. Football combines the strategy of chess. It's part ballet. It's part battleground, part playground. We clarify, amplify and glorify the game with our footage, the narration and that music, and in the end create an inspirational piece of footage.

I want to serve chess through games, books that are works of art. I would like to bring the game closer to many people all over the world.

There is no remorse like the remorse of Chess

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that the people who really enjoy chess are the dubs and the duffers, experts who have resigned their ambitions, those who play only for pastime, and, of course, the great fraternity of the kibbitzers.

Playing chess has many aspects that can be useful in everyday situations like planning, concentration and combinations. You learn to win but also to lose and to be creative.

For some obscure reason, some authorities seem bent on making the drinking of wine a ritual more complicated than chess. They have succeeded in inhibiting a large section of the public and depriving them of one of the greatest pleasures known to man.

The most powerful weapon in Chess is to have the next move

All I want to do, ever, is play chess.

The chess player who develops the ability to play two dozen boards at a time will benefit from learning to compress his or her analysis into less time.

Chess is the gymnasium of the mind.

Computers have changed the world of chess.

The fatal hour of this ancient game is approaching. In its modern form this game will soon die a drawing death - the inevitable victory of certainty and mechanization will leave its stamp on the fate of chess.