Quotes and Sayings about Chess
"Chess for me is not a game, but an art. Yes, and I take upon myself all those responsibilities which an art imposes on its adherents."
- Alexander Alekhine
(Related: Art, Chess)
"I believe that true beauty of chess is more than enough to satisfy all possible demands."
- Alexander Alekhine
(Related: Beauty, Chess)
"Chess is not only knowledge and logic."
- Alexander Alekhine
(Related: Knowledge, Chess, Logic)
"I failed to make the chess team because of my height."
- Woody Allen
(Related: Chess)
"Chess is the gymnasium of the mind."
- Adolf Anderssen
(Related: Chess, Mind)
"I think that by and large chess players have been very kind. Like I said there have been a few incidents, but they certainly didn't serve to bring me down any."
- Maurice Ashley
(Related: Chess)
"I see myself more as an ambassador of the game. And I hope to bring chess to a higher level in the United States. Making bigger tournaments, more interesting events. Making it a respectable profession for young people to be able to pursue in the future."
- Maurice Ashley
(Related: People, Hope, Chess, Events, Future, Profession, states, United)
"My problem with chess was that all my pieces wanted to end the game as soon as possible."
- Dave Barry
(Related: Chess, End)
"Ensemble is hard to do. It's like 3-D chess."
- Eric Bogosian
(Related: Chess)
"These young guys are playing checkers. I'm out there playing chess."
- Kobe Bryant
(Related: Chess)
"Leonard Chess passed, and that was the end of the Chess label for that time."
- Solomon Burke
(Related: Time, Chess, End)
"In life, as in chess, forethought wins."
- Charles Buxton
(Related: Life, Chess)
"Life's too short for chess."
- Henry James Byron
(Related: Life, Chess)
"Life's to short for chess."
- Henry James Byron
(Related: Life, Chess)
"People are governed with the head; kindness of heart is little use in chess."
- Nicolas Chamfort
(Related: People, Heart, Chess, Kindness)
"Chess is the most elaborate waste of human intelligence outside of an advertising agency."
- Raymond Chandler
(Related: Intelligence, Advertising, Chess, Waste)
"Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency."
- Raymond Chandler
(Related: Intelligence, Advertising, Chess, Waste)
"There have been several Duchesses of Westminster but there is only one Chanel!"
- Coco Chanel
"Rigging a loudspeaker and a microphone at both ends of a sewer pipe."
- Leonard Chess
"A cat, I am told, has nine lives. If that is true, I know how a cat feels."
- Caryl Chessman
"Further, a document names and identifies the actual Red Light Bandits (plural), because in fact there are two."
- Caryl Chessman
(Related: Fact, Light, Names)
"How, possibly, could the police have made the 'mistake' of charging the wrong man with the notorious Red Light Bandit crimes? That also is something that is fully revealed in the Pandora's Box of facts I have prepared."
- Caryl Chessman
(Related: Facts, Light, Man, Police, Wrong)
"I am not generally regarded as a pleasant or socially minded fellow."
- Caryl Chessman
"If the executioner goes, my package will never be made public. If he doesn't go, it will be made public exactly fifty years from the day the bill for a moratorium on capital punishment is defeated."
- Caryl Chessman
(Related: Day, Public, Punishment, Will, Years)
"It is my hope and my belief that you will be able to report that I died with dignity, without animal fear and without bravado. I owe that much to myself."
- Caryl Chessman
(Related: Fear, Belief, Hope, Dignity, Will)
"My soul is not for sale."
- Caryl Chessman
(Related: Soul)
"The price I have personally paid for these extra Sisyphean years has been prohibitive."
- Caryl Chessman
(Related: Years)
"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."
- Kate Chopin
(Related: Kiss, Chess, Eyes, Smile)
"My freshman year of high school I joined the chess and math clubs."
- Eric Allin Cornell
(Related: Chess, School)
"Between rounds of speed chess I read enough of a programming manual to teach myself to write programs on the school's DEC mainframe in the language Basic."
- Eric Allin Cornell
(Related: Chess, Language, Programming, School)
"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."
- Daniel Craig
(Related: Movies, Chess, Thinking)
"Personally, I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world chess championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility."
- Richard Dawkins
(Related: Winning, Chess, Computer, Humanity, Humility, Needs, World)
"Chess can be described as the movement of pieces eating one another."
- Marcel Duchamp
(Related: Chess, Eating)
"I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position."
- Marcel Duchamp
(Related: Art, Beauty, Chess)
"But it's also because of something personal. My mother and father met while playing chess, so I've always had a fondness for the game. If it weren't for chess, I might not be here."
- Dorothy Dunnett
(Related: Mother, Father, Chess)
"You all know that each title in the Chronicles has a chess theme; that's partly because of the overall design of the Chronicles themselves - the game of chess as an analogue of the game of life."
- Dorothy Dunnett
(Related: Design, Life, Chess)
"Whoever sees no other aim in the game than that of giving checkmate to one's opponent will never become a good Chess player."
- Max Euwe
(Related: Chess, Giving, Will)
"Chess is a sport. The main object in the game of chess remains the achievement of victory."
- Max Euwe
(Related: Achievement, Victory, Chess)
"All that matters on the chessboard is good moves."
- Bobby Fischer
"Chess is life."
- Bobby Fischer
(Related: Life, Chess)
"Litigation is the pursuit of practical ends, not a game of chess."
- Felix Frankfurter
(Related: Chess, Pursuit)
"Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Related: Ideas, Winning, May)
"I haven't played a chess match for several decades. At one point I lost most of my chess games. Then I realized many of my competitors were memorizing the best moves and I was unwilling to do this."
- John Harsanyi
(Related: Chess, Games)
"The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us."
- Thomas Huxley
(Related: Nature, Chess, Laws, Rules, Universe, World)
"Whoever called snooker 'chess with balls' was rude, but right."
- Clive James
(Related: Right)
"Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess."
- Samuel Johnson
(Related: Imagination, Man)
"Chess is my life, but my life is not chess."
- Anatoly Karpov
(Related: Life, Chess)
"I am thinking about chess in schools in particular. In the USA more than 3200 children competed in an event."
- Anatoly Karpov
(Related: Chess, Children, Schools, Thinking)
"After that, Kasparov stepped back from chess which is, and I want this to be clear, not good for chess in general at all. As a whole, the current situation in the chess world leaves a lot to be desired."
- Anatoly Karpov
(Related: Chess, Want, World)
"In Kansas I have a chess school."
- Anatoly Karpov
(Related: Chess, School)
"I still love to play chess. So I do not even spend a minute on the possibility to step back."
- Anatoly Karpov
(Related: Love, Possibility, Chess, Play)
"No, no, it is obvious that the ECU should act as a close alliance for the benefit of chess."
- Anatoly Karpov
(Related: Act, Alliance, Chess, Obvious)
"It's quite difficult for me to imagine my life without chess."
- Garry Kasparov
(Related: Life, Chess)
"I may play some exhibition games so I don't want to quit the game of chess completely. I just decided and it's a firm decision not to play competitive chess anymore."
- Garry Kasparov
(Related: Decision, Chess, Games, May, Play, Want)
"Chess is mental torture."
- Garry Kasparov
(Related: Chess)
"I learned that fighting on the chess board could also have an impact on the political climate in the country."
- Garry Kasparov
(Related: Chess, Climate, Country, Fighting)
"Women, by their nature, are not exceptional chess players: they are not great fighters."
- Garry Kasparov
(Related: Nature, Women, Chess)
"I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved."
- Soren Kierkegaard
(Related: Chess)
"The human element, the human flaw and the human nobility - those are the reasons that chess matches are won or lost."
- Viktor Korchnoi
(Related: Chess, Nobility)
"Every time I win a tournament I have to think that there is something wrong with modern chess."
- Viktor Korchnoi
(Related: Time, Chess, Wrong)
"My dad sacrificed many things in life for me. He abandoned a very promising and lucrative career of an army officer just so that he could continue helping me with my chess and accompanying me to tournaments."
- Alexandra Kosteniuk
(Related: Dad, Life, Army, Career, Chess)
"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."
- Vladimir Kramnik
(Related: Beauty, Control, Chess)
"I believe every chess player senses beauty, when he succeeds in creating situations, which contradict the expectations and the rules, and he succeeds in mastering this situation."
- Vladimir Kramnik
(Related: Beauty, Chess, Expectations, Rules, Senses)
"I am convinced, the way one plays chess always reflects the player's personality. If something defines his character, then it will also define his way of playing."
- Vladimir Kramnik
(Related: Character, Chess, Personality, Will)
"For me art and chess are closely related, both are forms in which the self finds beauty and expression."
- Vladimir Kramnik
(Related: Art, Beauty, Chess, Expression, Self)
"Chess is an infinitely complex game, which one can play in infinitely numerous and varied ways."
- Vladimir Kramnik
(Related: Chess, Play)
"For us chess players the language of artist is something natural."
- Vladimir Kramnik
(Related: Artist, Chess, Language)
"The development of beauty in chess never depends on you alone. No matter how much imagination and creativity you invest, you still do not create beauty. Your opponent must react at the same highest level."
- Vladimir Kramnik
(Related: Beauty, Imagination, Development, Creativity, Chess)
"When I speak of the beauty of a game of chess, then naturally this is subjective. Beauty can be found in a very technical, mathematical game for example. That is the beauty of clarity."
- Vladimir Kramnik
(Related: Beauty, Chess, Clarity, Example)
"You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas."
- Stanley Kubrick
(Related: Heart, Idea, Ideas, Chess)
"On one night of my debut the Prince of Wales, the Princess, and the duchess of London came to see me. They loved me for what I was and what I gave them."
- Lillie Langtry
(Related: London, Night)
"Life is not always like chess. Just because you have the king surrounded, don't think he is not capable of hurting you."
- Ron Livingston
(Related: Life, Chess)
"Never having played Chess before, it was most interesting to be playing the game with no pieces in front of me. But I still knew how to stroke my hair when I won."
- Peter Mayhew
(Related: Chess, Hair)
"I'd like to go away for six months and learn to kiteboard and windsurf. I love pinochle, I love chess and I love windsurfing."
- Christopher Meloni
(Related: Love, Chess, Months)
"I'm like Bush, I see the world more like checkers than chess."
- Dennis Miller
(Related: Chess, World)
"Chess, like mathematics and music, is a nursery for child prodigies."
- Jamie Murphy
(Related: Music, Chess, Mathematics)
"It was not until I got my first job, at the University of Washington in Seattle, and began playing chess with Don Gordon, a brilliant young theorist, that I learned economic theory."
- Douglass North
(Related: Chess, First, Job, Theory, University, Washington)
"A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing."
- Emo Philips
(Related: Boxing, Chess, Computer)
"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out til too late that he's been playing with two queens all along."
- Terry Pratchett
(Related: Gods, Chess, Fate)
"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."
- Marilyn vos Savant
(Related: Time, Ability, Chess, Learning, Play, Will)
"In our town there was a Gestapo officer who loved to play chess. After the occupation began, he found out that my father was the chess master of the region, and so he had him to his house every night."
- Bruno Schulz
(Related: Father, Chess, Night, Occupation, Play)
"Theses officers were good friends, so it must have been a terrible argument, because the one who played chess with my father was so angry that he walked over to the dentist's house and got the dentist out of bed and shot him."
- Bruno Schulz
(Related: Father, Argument, Bed, Chess, Friends)
"The ability to get ahead in an organization is simply another talent, like the ability to play chess, paint pictures, do coronary bypass operations or pick pockets."
- Robert Shea
(Related: Talent, Ability, Chess, Play)
"Chess is ruthless: you've got to be prepared to kill people."
- Nigel Short
(Related: People, Chess)
"It's less about the physical training, in the end, than it is about the mental preparation: boxing is a chess game. You have to be skilled enough and have trained hard enough to know how many different ways you can counterattack in any situation, at any moment."
- Jimmy Smits
(Related: Boxing, Chess, End, Training)
"On the other hand, chess is a mass sport now and for chess organisers shorter time control is obviously more attractive. But I think that this control does not suit World Championship matches."
- Boris Spassky
(Related: Time, Control, Chess, Now, World)
"The place of chess in the society is closely related to the attitude of young people towards our game."
- Boris Spassky
(Related: Society, People, Attitude, Chess)
"The Soviet Union was an exception, but even there chess players were not rich. Only Fischer changed that."
- Boris Spassky
(Related: Chess)
"We can compare classical chess and rapid chess with theatre and cinema - some actors don't like the latter and prefer to work in the theatre."
- Boris Spassky
(Related: Work, Actors, Chess, Cinema, Theatre)
"Nowadays young people have great choice of occupations, hobbies, etc, so chess is experiencing difficulties because of the high competition. Now it's hard to make living in chess, so our profession does attract young people."
- Boris Spassky
(Related: People, Chess, Choice, Competition, Difficulties, Hobbies, Living, Now, Occupations, Profession)
"Bobby Fischer has an enormous knowledge of chess and his familiarity with the chess literature of the USSR is immense."
- Boris Spassky
(Related: Knowledge, Chess, Familiarity, Literature)
"Nowadays the dynamic element is more important in chess - players more often sacrifice material to obtain dynamic compensation."
- Boris Spassky
(Related: Sacrifice, Chess)
"In my country, at that time, being a champion of chess was like being a King. At that time I was a King - and when you are King you feel a lot of responsibility, but there is nobody there to help you."
- Boris Spassky
(Related: Time, Being, Chess, Country, Help, Responsibility)
"I try to help developing junior chess. When I lived in USSR, I got a lot of free help from very good coaches - now I am trying to repay that debt."
- Boris Spassky
(Related: Chess, Coaches, Debt, Help, Now, Trying)
"I also follow chess on the Internet, where Kasparov's site is very interesting."
- Boris Spassky
(Related: Chess, Internet)
"Nowadays there is more dynamism in chess, modern players like to take the initiative. Usually they are poor defenders though."
- Boris Spassky
(Related: Chess, Poor)
"The Chess-board must be placed with a white square at the right-hand corner."
- Howard Staunton
(Related: Chess, Right)
"The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it."
- Gertrude Stein
(Related: Earth, Nothing, World)
"Chess is not for timid souls."
- Wilhelm Steinitz
(Related: Chess)
"Chess is intellectual gymnastics."
- Wilhelm Steinitz
(Related: Chess)
"Chess is so inspiring that I do not believe a good player is capable of having an evil thought during the game."
- Wilhelm Steinitz
(Related: Thought, Chess, Evil, Inspiring)
"What do I do when we're not taping? Sit in a dark room and refine my plans for someday ruling Earth from a blimp. And chess."
- Ryan Stiles
(Related: Chess, Earth)
"If I'm home with no chore at hand, and a package of books has come, the television set and the chess board and the unanswered mail will have to manage without me if one of the books is a detective story."
- Rex Stout
(Related: Home, Books, Chess, Mail, Television, Will)
"Far be it from me to force anyone into either chess or dressage, but if you choose to do so yourself, in my opinion there is only one way: follow the rules."
- Lars von Trier
(Related: Chess, Force, Opinion, Rules)
"I play chess badly and I've been beaten by my 10-year old son."
- John Turturro
(Related: Son, Chess, Old, Play)
"It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink."
- Horace Walpole
(Related: Old)
"There is nothing that disgusts a man like getting beaten at chess by a woman."
- Charles Dudley Warner
(Related: Chess, Man, Nothing, Woman)
"Seem to be telling this, but really telling that. Three-dimensional writing, like three-dimensional chess. Nabokov was the other master of that. You could learn something from Nabokov on every page he ever wrote."
- Donald E. Westlake
(Related: Chess, Writing)
"There was one point in high school actually when I was on the chess team, marching band, model United Nations and debate club all at the same time. And I would spend time with the computer club after school. And I had just quit pottery club, which I was in junior high, but I let that go."
- Rainn Wilson
(Related: Time, Chess, Computer, Debate, Nations, School, United)