Inspiring Chess Quotes to Elevate Your Game

"Chess is the struggle against the error."

- Johannes Zukertort

"Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece."

- Ralph Charell

"Chess is the gymnasium of the mind."

- Blaise Pascal

"Every chess master was once a beginner."

- Irving Chernev

"You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win. You will have to lose hundreds of games before becoming a good player."

- José Raúl Capablanca

"Chess is a war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent’s mind."

- Bobby Fischer

"When you see a good move, look for a better one."

- Emanuel Lasker

"I give 98 percent of my mental energy to Chess"

- Bobby Fischer

"Bobby Fischer is the greatest Chess genius of all time!"

- Alexander Kotov

"I don’t believe in psychology. I believe in good moves."

- Bobby Fischer

"Play the opening like a book, the middlegame like a magician, and the endgame like a machine."

- Rudolph Spielmann

"When having an edge, [Anatoly] Karpov often marked time and still gained the advantage! I don't know anyone else who could do that, it's incredible."

- Vladimir Kramnik

"Chess is a very logical game and it is the man who can reason most logically and profoundly in it that ought to win."

- Jose Raul Capablanca

"Chess is the art of analysis."

- Mikhail Botvinnik

"They represent the triumph of mind over matter"

- Reuben Fine

"Chess holds its master in its own bonds, shackling the mind and brain so that the inner freedom of the very strongest must suffer."

- Albert Einstein

"Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine"

- Spielmann

"In life, as in chess, forethought wins."

- Charles Buxton

"In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else"

- Jose Raul Capablanca

"You have to have the fighting spirit. You have to force moves and take chances"

- Bobby Fischer

"One doesn’t have to play well, it’s enough to play better than your opponent."

- Siegbert Tarrasch

"By this measure (on the gap between Fischer & his contemporaries), I consider him the greatest world champion"

- Garry Kasparov

"Chess teaches foresight, by having to plan ahead; vigilance, by having to keep watch over the whole chess board; caution, by having to restrain ourselves from making hasty moves; and finally, we learn from chess the greatest maxim in life – that even when everything seems to be going badly for us we should not lose heart, but always hoping for a change for the better, steadfastly continue searching for the solutions to our problems"

- Benjamin Franklin

"With or without the title, Bobby Fischer was unquestionably the greatest player of his time"

- Burt Hochberg

"Fischer sacrificed virtually everything most of us weakies (to use his term) value, respect, and cherish, for the sake of an artful, often beautiful board game, for the ambivalent privilege of being its greatest master"

- Paul Kollar

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

- Eduard Gufeld

"We cannot resist the fascination of sacrifice, since a passion for sacrifices is part of a Chess player's nature."

- Rudolf Spielman

"The hardest game to win is a won game."

- Emanuel Lasker

"Chess is not for timid souls."

- Wilhelm Steinitz

"You are for me the Queen on d8 and I am the Pawn on d7!!"

- GM Eduard Gufeld

"Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack."

- Wilhelm Steinitz

"You can only get good at Chess if you love the game"

- Bobby Fischer

"Chess is rarely a game of ideal moves. Almost always, a player faces a series of difficult consequences whichever move he makes."

- David Shenk

"Chess is life"

- Bobby Fischer

"I started by just sitting by the chessboard exploring things. I didn't even have books at first, and I just played by myself. I learnt a lot from that, and I feel that it is a big reason why I now have a good intuitive understanding of chess."

- Magnus Carlsen

"When asked, -How is that you pick better moves than your opponents?, I responded: I'm very glad you asked me that, because, as it happens, there is a very simple answer. I think up my own moves, and I make my opponent think up his."

- Alexander Alekhine

"Many have become Chess Masters, no one has become the Master of Chess"

- Siegbert Tarrasch

"By playing at Chess then, we may learn: First: Foresight... Second: Circumspection... Third: Caution..."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Openings teach you openings. Endgames teach you chess!"

- Stephan Gerzadowicz

"Your body has to be in top condition. Your Chess deteriorates as your body does. You can’t separate body from mind"

- Bobby Fischer

"Chess is above all, a fight!"

- Emanuel Lasker

"Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders"

- Savielly Tartakower

"I look one move ahead... the best!"

- Siegbert Tarrasch

"After a bad opening, there is hope for the middle game. After a bad middle game, there is hope for the endgame. But once you are in the endgame, the moment of truth has arrived"

- Edmar Mednis

"Chess is the art of analysis"

- Mikhail Botvinnik

"Chess is so inspiring that I do not believe a good player is capable of having an evil thought during the game"

- Wilhelm Steinitz

"Chess is in its essence a game, in its form an art, and in its execution a science"

- Baron Tassilo

"Chess opens and enriches your mind"

- Saudin Robovic

"Chess books should be used as we use glasses: to assist the sight"

- Jose Raul Capablanca

"The beauty of a move lies not in its’ appearance but in the thought behind it"

- Aaron Nimzovich

"Chess is ruthless: you’ve got to be prepared to kill people"

- Nigel Short

"I like the moment when I break a man’s ego"

- Bobby Fischer

"After a bad opening, there is hope for the middle game. After a bad middle game, there is hope for the endgame. But once you are in the endgame, the moment of truth has arrived."

- Edmar Mednis

"Chess makes men wiser and clear-sighted."

- Vladimir Putin

"Nothing excites jaded Grandmasters more than a theoretical novelty."

- Dominic Lawson

"A win by an unsound combination, however showy, fills me with artistic horror."

- Wilhelm Steinitz

"Even a poor plan is better than no plan at all."

- Mikhail Chigorin

"It’s always better to sacrifice your opponent’s men."

- Savielly Tartakower

"Chess is beautiful enough to waste your life for."

- Hans Ree

"The pin is mightier than the sword."

- Fred Reinfeld

"Your body has to be in top condition. Your chess deteriorates as your body does. You can’t separate body and mind."

- Bobby Fischer

"Chess is so inspiring that I do not believe a good player is capable of having an evil thought during the game."

- Wilhelm Steinitz

"It doesn’t matter how strong a player you are, if you fail to register some development in the opening, then you are asking for trouble."

- John Emms

"Chess is a forcing house where the fruits of character can ripen more fully than in life."

- Edward Morgan Forster

"Chess is played with the mind and not with the hands!"

- Renaud and Kahn

"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."

- Vladimir Kramnik

"Help your pieces so they can help you."

- Paul Morphy

"Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack"

- Wilhelm Steinitz

"The Pawns are the soul of the game"

- Francois Andre Danican Philidor

"Without error there can be no brilliancy"

- Emanuel Lasker

"Could we look into the head of a Chess player, we should see there a whole world of feelings, images, ideas, emotion and passion"

- Alfred Binet

"When in doubt... play Chess!"

- Tevis

"There are tough players and nice guys, and I’m a tough player"

- Bobby Fischer

"Chess is a beautiful mistress"

- Bent Larsen

"The combination player thinks forward; he starts from the given position, and tries the forceful moves in his mind"

- Emanuel Lasker

"In Chess, at least, the brave inherit the earth"

- Edmar Mednis

"Capture of the adverse King is the ultimate but not the first object of the game"

- William Steinitz

"Chess is a part of culture and if a culture is declining then Chess too will decline"

- Mikhail Botvinnik

"When you play Bobby, it is not a question if you win or lose. It is a question if you survive"

- Boris Spassky

"Chess is a fighting game which is purely intellectual and includes chance"

- Richard Reti

"The passion for playing Chess is one of the most unaccountable in the world"

- H.G. Wells

"If a ruler does not understand Chess, how can he rule over a kingdom?"

- King Khusros II

"In complicated positions, Bobby Fischer hardly had to be afraid of anybody"

- Paul Keres

"I guess a certain amount of temperament is expected of Chess geniuses"

- Ron Gross

"The King is a fighting piece. Use it!"

- Wilhelm Steinitz

"There is only one thing Fischer does in Chess without pleasure: to lose!"

- Boris Spassky

"The beauty and creativity of chess masterpieces as an art form gives me a sense of musical inspiration and wonder about what the human mind is capable of"

- Keith Oxman

"A bad plan is better than none at all"

- Frank Marshall

"There is no remorse like the remorse of Chess"

- H. G. Wells

"The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake"

- Savielly Tartakover

"Every Pawn is a potential Queen"

- James Mason

"Some part of a mistake is always correct"

- Savielly Tartakover

"I love all positions. Give me a difficult positional game, I will play it. But totally won positions, I cannot stand them"

- Hein Donner

"I prefer to lose a really good game than to win a bad one"

- David Levy

"The mistakes are there, waiting to be made"

- Savielly Tartakower

"Chess is so interesting in itself, as not to need the view of gain to induce engaging in it; and thence it is never played for money"

- Benjamin Franklin

"Dazzling combinations are for the many, shifting wood is for the few"

- Georg Kieninger

"Chess is 99 percent tactics"

- Teichmann

"A good sacrifice is one that is not necessarily sound but leaves your opponent dazed and confused"

- Rudolph Spielmann

"Excellence at Chess is one mark of a scheming mind"

- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"Chess is like war on a board"

- Bobby Fischer

"You know, comrade Pachman, I don’t enjoy being a Minister, I would rather play Chess like you"

- Che Guevara

"The shortcoming of hanging pawns is that they present a convenient target for attack. As the exchange of men proceeds, their potential strength lessens and during the endgame they turn out, as a rule, to be weak."

- Boris Spassky

"Chess isn’t a game of speed, it is a game of speech through actions"

- Matthew Selman

"For in the idea of chess and the development of the chess mind we have a picture of the intellectual struggle of mankind."

- Richard Réti

"Winning isn’t everything... but losing is nothing"

- Mednis

"Even the laziest King flees wildly in the face of a double check!"

- Aaron Nimzowitsch

"One bad move nullifies forty good ones"

- Horowitz

"Checkers is for tramps"

- Paul Morphy

"Chess is a cold bath for the mind"

- Sir John Simon

"A king may be the most important piece on the chessboard; however, the queen is the most powerful."

- Karim R. Ellis

"He who fears an isolated Queen’s Pawn should give up Chess."

- Siegbert Tarrasch

"When the game is over, the king and pawn go into the same box"

- Italian Proverb

"Chess is a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe"

- Hindu proverb

"A good player is always lucky."

- Jose Raul Capablanca

"If your opponent offers you a draw, try to work out why he thinks he’s worse off."

- Nigel Short

"The only thing Chess players have in common is Chess"

- Lodewijk Prins

"Fischer is completely natural. He plays no roles. He’s like a child. Very, very simple"

- Zita Rajcsanyi

"A chess game in progress is… a cosmos unto itself, fully insulated from an infant’s cry, an erotic invitation, or war."

- David Shenk

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

- William Napier

"Of Chess it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is the fault of life, not Chess"

- William Ewart Napier

"Methodical thinking is of more use in Chess than inspiration"

- C. J. S. Purdy

"The laws of Chess do not permit a free choice: you have to move whether you like it or not"

- Emanuel Lasker

"Half the variations which are calculated in a tournament game turn out to be completely superfluous. Unfortunately, no one knows in advance which half."

- Jan Timman

"The essence of Chess is thinking about what Chess is"

- David Bronstein

"I have always a slight feeling of pity for the man who has no knowledge of Chess"

- Siegbert Tarrasch

"The only thing chess players have in common is chess."

- Lodewijk Prins

"Life is like a game of chess, in which there are an infinite number of complex moves possible. The choice is open, but the move made contains within it all future moves. One is free to choose, but what follows is the result of one’s choice. From the consequences of one’s action there is never any escape"

- Shelley Smith

"Chess, like love, is infectious at any age."

- Salo Flohr

"One bad move nullifies forty good ones."

- Bernhard Horwitz

"Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders."

- Savielly Tartakower

"You know you’re going to lose. Even when I was ahead I knew I was going to lose"

- Andrew Soltis

"A player surprised is half beaten"

- Proverb

"To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"In Chess, just as in life, today's bliss may be tomorrow's poison."

- Assaic

"It is no easy matter to reply correctly to [Emanuel] Lasker's bad moves."

- W.H.K. Pollock

"Chess is a curse upon a man."

- H. G. Wells

"Chess is as much a mystery as women."

- Purdy

"Those who say they understand chess, understand nothing."

- Robert Hübner

"I would rather have $1000!"

"No one ever won a game by resigning"

"I looked into her brain and she wasn’t thinking about the game!"

"Little girls are smarter than little boys."

"A bad day of Chess is better than any good day at work"

"I want you to know I am a very nice boy, but I have a policy of allowing only two take backs per game."

"He has been doing this for centuries."

"I got along with Bobby just fine. Whenever he wanted a steak, I bought him two!"