Quotes About Chess

She and I just don't see eye to eye together. She's a square. She keeps telling me that I'm too interested in chess, that I should get friends outside of chess, you can't make a living from chess, that I should finish high school and all that nonsense. She keeps in my hair and I don't like people in my hair, you know, so I had to get rid of her.

Despite the development of chess theory, there is much that remains secret and unexplored in chess.

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.

I just think we should look at this as a chess match," he said, "between the world's greatest chess player and Garry Kasparov.

A lot of people think international relations is like a game of chess. But it's not a game of chess, where people sit quietly, thinking out their strategy, taking their time between moves. It's more like a game of billiards, with a bunch of balls clustered together.

The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life.

The key in terms of mental ability is chess. There's never been a woman Grand Master chess player. Once you get one, then I'll buy some of the feminism.

I had lunch with a chess champion the other day. I knew he was a chess champion because it took him 20 minutes to pass the salt.

The game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions, for life is a kind of chess.

Chess holds deep wisdoms of the people. It is truly an image of life, the reflection of human fate that has shown us the earthly way of suffering in darkness and permanent shortage of time. Like in chess, we encounter all kinds of traps, mistakes, settlements, sacrifices, kings, and queens, doubled pawns, and extraordinary moves while we are on the board ourselves.

A championship contender in the early twentieth century needed charisma and a knack for cultivating sponsorship, and Rubinstein was the epitome of the shy and unsocial chess player. Now matter how great his chess skills, he lacked the people skills to be a self-promoter and fund-raiser.

Chess is not Mathematics, where ten is always more than one; in chess the King with a pawn can beat opponent's King with all pieces if they are placed badly.

You bring to chess facets of your personality and what you are. I have interests other than chess, like music and world and current affairs. I also have many friends around the world with whom I like to keep in touch.

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

Chess programs are our enemies, they destroy the romance of chess. They take away the beauty of the game. Everything can be calculated.

I don't like politics especially in chess. All I want is promote chess 24/7.

Chess is ruthless: you've got to be prepared to kill people.

Human life very much resembles a game of chess: for, as in the latter, while a gamester is too attentive to secure himself very strongly on one side of the board, he is apt to leave an unguarded opening on the other, so doth it often happen in life.

...chess is "a lot like football because you have to set up your offense and your defense, every once in a while you need to give up a piece of your team in order to make the big play. It's a game of patience, and that pretty much defines how I run the ball. I'm patient, always looking for the opportunity and always trying to capitalize on the other person's mistake."

Chess is an effective means to educate and train the human intellect.

Chess is like war on a board

In chess, as a purely intellectual game, where randomness is excluded, - for someone to play against himself is absurd ... It is as paradoxical, as attempting to jump over his own shadow.

I played tournament chess from fifth grade up into high school.

Chess is not a game, but a disease.

Know that life, which does everything perfectly, is now moving you in a new direction. The chess piece of your existence is being moved to a new square on the board of life.

In chess one cannot control everything. Sometimes a game takes an unexpected turn, in which beauty begins to emerge. Both players are always instrumental in this.

The most intelligent inspection of any number of fine paintings will not make the observer a painter, nor will listening to a number of operas make the hearer a musician, but good judges of music and painting may so be formed. Chess differs from these. The intelligent perusal of fine games cannot fail to make the reader a better player and a better judge of the play of others.

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.

Mathematics is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one's best moments that count and not one's worst.

Fischer is an American Chess tragedy on par with Morphy and Pillsbury

There is no physical punishment in chess; suffering goes on inside the mind. You defend a bad position for hours, you suffer. You lose, you suffer like in any other sport. Suffering euphoria comes when the opponent blunders in a winning position, but it is undeserved.

All Chess players should have a hobby

I have always a slight feeling of pity for the man who has no knowledge of chess, just as I would pity the man who has remained ignorant of love.

My studies with Botvinnik brought me immense benefit, particularly the homework assignments which forced me to refer to chess books and to work independently.

Instead of critics reviewing my movies, now what they're really doing is trying to match wits with me. Every time they review my movies, it's like they want to play chess with the mastermind and show off every reference they can find, even when half of it is all of their own making.

I believe that, not only in chess, but in life in general, people place too much stock in ratings – they pay attention to which TV shows have the highest ratings, how many friends they have on Facebook, and it’s funny. The best shows often have low ratings and it is impossible to have thousands of real friends.

Sexiness, particularly in movies, is the chess game in the 'Thomas Crown Affair'. It's, it's, I don't know, but Faye Dunaway comes up a lot in that thinking. It's the subtlety of sexiness. The moment you try to be sexy, then it's not.

Chess is only a recreation and not an occupation.

I've always liked puzzles, since I was a kid. I like party games, silly games. I loved chess. I enjoy jigsaw puzzles, but I'm not particularly visual.

...for chess, that superb, cold, infinitely satisfying anodyne to life, I feel the ardour of a lover, the humility of a disciple.

In boxing you create a strategy to beat each new opponent, it's just like chess.

It's quite difficult for me to imagine my life without chess.

By some ardent enthusiasts Chess has been elevated into a science or an art. It is neither; but its principal characteristic seems to be - what human nature mostly delights in - a fight.

I had thrown my body in for art... I had thrown myself into this game for art. You know, I was not a very good artist. But this was, like, one thing I could do. (On being photographed nude playing chess with Marcel Duchamp at Duchamp's 1963 retrospective at the Pasadena Museum of Art.)

A grandmaster must memorize thousands of chess duels in his head, as these are for him what words of the mother tongue are to the ordinary people and what notes are to a musician.

She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his; and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited.

Today, chess programs have become so good that even grandmasters sometimes struggle to understand the logic behind some of their moves.

Tactics involve calculations that can tax the human brain, but when you boil them down, they are actually the simplest part of chess and are almost trivial compared to strategy.