Chess is a good mistress, but a bad master. – Gerald Abrahams (1907-1980)
In chess there is a world of intellectual values. – Gerald Abrahams (1907-1980)
Chess has fewer rules, which are more easily learned, than many children’s board games. – Lev Alburt (1945- )
The older the player, the greater the odds his idol is Lasker. – Lev Alburt (1945- )
Chess will always be the master of us all – Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946)
Chess first of all teaches you to be objective. –Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946)
Chess, like other arts, must be practiced to be appreciated. – Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946) (source: Brooklyn Daily Eagle 1929)
A lifetime in not enough to learn everything about chess. – Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946) (source: BBC interview, 1938)
I believe that true beauty of chess is more than enough to satisfy all possible demands. – Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946)
I failed to make the chess team because of my height. – Woody Allen (1935)
Nowadays, when you’re not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it. – Viswanathan Anand (1969- )
Chess is like a language. The top players are very fluent at it. Talent can be developed scientifically, but you have to find first what you are good at. – Viswanathan Anand (1969- )
In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate. – Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
In chess, just as in life, today’s bliss may be tomorrow’s poison. – Assiac – Heinrich Fraenkel (1897-1986)
To have a knight planted in your game at K6 is worse than a rusty nail in your knee. – Efim Bogolgubow (1889-1952)
Chess is too difficult to be a game and not serious enough to be a science or an art. – Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
The reason I like the game of chess is because each move has countless repercussions, but you’re in charge of them. – Bono (1960- )
Chess is the art of analysis. – Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-1995)
Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic. – Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-1995)
The essence of chess is thinking about what chess is. – David Bronstein (1924-2006)
Chess is infinite, and one has to make only one ill-considered move, and one’s opponent’s wildest dreams will become reality. – David Bronstein (1924-2006)
Chess is a natural cerebral high. – Walter Browne (1949- )
Life is too short for chess. – Henry James Byron (1835-1884) (source: Our Boys play in 1875, print in 1880)
Chess is not a game but a disease. – Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836-1908)
The good player is always lucky. – Jose Capablanca (1888-1942)
In chess, as played by a good player, logic and imagination must go hand in hand, compensating each other. – Jose Capablanca (1888-1942)
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 Capablanca (1888-1942)
An hour’s history of two minds is well told in a game of chess. – Jose Capablanca (1888-1942)
I spend hours playing chess because I find it so much fun. The day it stops being fun is the day I give it up. – Magnus Carlsen (1990- )
Self-confidence is very important. If you don’t think you can win, you will take cowardly decisions in the crucial moments, out of sheer respect for your opponent…It is better to overestimate your prospects than underestimate them. – Magnus Carlsen (1990 – )
Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency. – Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) (source: The Long Goodbye, 1953)
Chess is not for the timid. – Irving Chernev (1900-1981)
Every chess master was once a beginner. – Irving Chernev (1900-1981)
Of chess, it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is the fault of life, not chess. – Chernev (1900-1981)
Even a poor plan is better than no plan at all. – Mikhail Chigorin (1850-1908)
Life is like a game of chess, changing with each move. – Chinese Proverb?
A man ceases to be a beginner in chess and becomes a master when he has learned that he is going to be a beginner all his life. – R. G. Collingwood (1889-1943)
Excellence at chess is one mark of a scheming mind. – Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)
Chess is a sport; a violent sport. – Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Not all artists may be chess players, but all chess players are artists. – Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Chess can be described as the movement of pieces eating one another. – Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Chess players are madmen of a certain quality, the way the artist is supposed to be, and isn’t, in general. – Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
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 (1887-1968)
Chess is a bond of brotherhood amongst all lovers of the noble game, as perfect as free masonry. It is a leveler of rank –title, wealth, nationality, politics, religion – all are forgotten across the board. – Frederick Milne Edge
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 (1879-1955)
Chess is a sport. The main object in the game of chess remains the achievement of victory. – Max Euwe (1901-1981)
Chess is a sport. The main object in the game of chess remains the achievement of victory. – Max Euwe (1901-1981)
A man that will take back a move at chess will pick a pocket. – Richard Fenton (1837-1916)
Ultimately chess is just chess. Not the best thing in the world and not the worst thing in the world, but there is nothing quite like it. – W.C. Fields (1880-1946)
I’d rather have a pawn than a finger. – Reuben Fine (1914-1993)
Believe firmly that in chess there are no rules without exceptions. – Reuben Fine (1914-1993)
Chess is like a delicious drug which offers such heavenly delights that they can never tear themselves away from it completely. – Reuben Fine (1914-1993)
Chess is life. – Bobby Fischer (1943-2008)
I don’t believe in psychology. I believe in good moves. – Bobby Fischer (1943-2008)
You can only get good at chess if you love the game. – Bobby Fischer (1943-2008)
I like to make them squirm. – Bobby Fischer (1943-2008)
If I win, I’m a genius. If I don’t, I’m not. – Bobby Fischer (1943-2008)
Every chess game is like taking a five-hour final exam. – Bobby Fischer (1943-2008)
There’s no luck involved in chess. You just have to work at it. – Bobby Fischer (1943-2008)
I don’t recommend trying to cram a lot of long opening-move variations into your head. The main idea behind any opening is to get a strong pawn center and give your pieces a lot of scope so that you cramp your opponent’s position and can attack weaknesses in his game. – Bobby Fischer (1943-2008)
I don’t believe in psychology – I believe in good moves. – Bobby Fischer (1943-2008) (source: Washington Post interview, 1977)
All that matters on the chessboard is good moves. – Bobby Fischer (1943-2008)
You can only get good at chess if you love the game. – Bobby Fischer (1943-2008)
Chess, like love, is infectious at any age. – Salo Flohr (1908-1983)
Life is a kind of chess, with struggle, competition, good and ill events. – Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
You cannot play chess if you are kind-hearted. – French proverb
No fool can play chess, and only fools do. – German proverb
Chess is the touchstone of intellect. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Chess is an effective means to educate and train the human intellect. – Che Guevara (1928-1967)
Chess is life and every game is like a new life. – Eduard Gufeld (1936-2002)
Everyone makes mistakes when they play chess – but strong players do not make the same mistake twice. – Tim Harding (1948- )
Chess is a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe. – Hindu Proverb? (source: Norman Knight, Chess Pieces, 1949)
Chess is a great game. No matter how good one is, there is always somebody better. No matter how bad one is, there is always somebody worse. – I.A. Horowitz (1907-1973)
In blitz, the knight is stronger than the bishop. – Vlastimil Hort (1944- )
Those who say they understand chess understand nothing. – Robert Huebner (1948- )
The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature, and the player on the other side is hidden from us. – Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)
Chess is everything: art, science, and sport. – Anatoly Karpov (1951- )
Chess is mental torture. – Garry Kasparov (1963- )
Chess is an art and not a spectator sport. – Garry Kasparov (1963- )
Chess is a test of wills. – Paul Keres (1916-1975)
Chess is a cure for headaches. – John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)
Chess is a hard game. There are no easy solutions. – Danny Kopec (1954- )
Every time I win a tournament, I have to think there is something wrong with modern chess. – Viktor Korchnoi (1931- )
No chess grandmaster is normal; they only differ in the extent of their madness. – Viktor Korchnoi (1931- )
It’s difficult to imagine another kind of sport where a woman can beat a man. That’s why I like chess. – Alexandra Kosteniuk (1984- )
Chess is cool. – Alexandra Kosteniuk (1984- )
It has always been recognized that chess is an art, and its best practitioners have been described as artists. – Alexander Kotov (1913-1981)
It is rightly said that the most difficult thing in chess is winning a won position. – Vladimir Kramnik (1975- )
In chess one cannot control everything. Sometimes a game takes an unexpected turn, in which beauty begins to emerge. – Vladimir Kramnik (1975- )
I often play a move I know how to refute. – Bent Larsen (1935-2010)
I don’t care very much for miniatures. I don’t try to beat my opponents quickly because if they are strong, I think I should respect them. It is too risky to play sharply to beat them in 20 moves. – Bent Larsen (1935-2010)
Chess is in its essence a game, in its form an art, and its execution a science. – Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa (1818-1899)
On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. – Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941) (source: Lasker’s Manual of Chess, 1927, p. 262)
Show me three lines of the opening theory moves and I will prove to you that two of them are incorrect. -Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941)
When you see a good move, look for a better one. – Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941)
In chess, as it is played by masters, chance is practically eliminated. – Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941)
Chess is one long regret. – Stephen Leacock (1869-1944)
Chess is only a recreation and not an occupation. – Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924)
There just isn’t enough televised chess. – David Letterman (1947- )
The hardest part of chess is winning a won game. – Frank Marshall (1877-1944)
‘Never make a good move too soon. – James Mason (1849-1905)
Chess is a game sufficiently rich in meaning that is easily capable of containing elements of both tragedy and comedy. – Luke McShane (1984- )
Chess is too serious to be a game, but not serious enough to be a profession. – Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
It is impossible to win gracefully at chess. – Alan Milne (1882-1956)
Chess has this in common with making poetry; that the desire for it comes upon the amateur in gusts. – A. A. Milne (1882-1956)
Help your pieces so they can help you. – Paul Morphy (1837-1884)
Chess is eminently and emphatically the philosopher’s game. – Paul Morphy (1837-1884)
The greatest difficulty of the game is to play it as well as one knows how. – William Napier (1881-1952)
Castle when you will, or if you must, but not when you can. – William Napier (1881-1952)
Set up your attacks that when the fire is out, it isn’t out. – William Napier (1881-1952)
The isolated pawn casts gloom over the entire chessboard. – Aron Nimzowitsch (1886-1935)
First restrain, next blockade, lastly destroy. – Aron Nimzowitsch (1886-1935) (source: My System, 1929, p. 181)
The beauty of a move lies not in its appearance, but in the thought behind it. – Aron Nimzowitsch (1886-1935)
Chess is neither a science nor an art, but rather a battle of minds. – Ludek Pachman (1924-2003)
Chess reflects the real world in miniature. Endeavor, struggle, success, and defeat – they are part of each game ever played. – Bruce Pandolfini (1947- )
The loser is always at fault. – Vasily Panov (1906-1973)
Chess is the gymnasium of the mind. – Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Chess is a fathead and feudal game. – George Perec (1936-1982)
The pawn is the soul of chess. – Francois-Andre Danican Philidor (1726-1795)
So set up your attacks that when the fire is out, it isn’t out! – Harry Nelson Pillsbury (1872-1906)
Repetition makes a master. Repetition makes you a better chess player. -Laszlo Polgar (1946- )
Chess is a miniature version of life. – Susan Polgar (1969- )
Your only task in the opening is to reach a playable middlegame. – Lajos Portisch (1937- )
Bishops move diagonally. That’s why they often turn up where kings don’t expect them to be. – Terry Pratchet (1948-2015) (source: Small Gods, 1992)
Chess is a gymnasium of the mind. – Peter Pratt (source: Studies of Chess, 1803)
The only thing chess players have in common is chess. – Lodewijk Prins (1913-1999)
Pawn endings are to chess what putting is to golf. – Cecil Purdy (1906-1979)
Chess makes man wiser and clear-sighted. – Vladimir Putin (1952- )
Although you may lead a student to chess, you can’t make him think. – Tim Redman (1950 – )
Chess is beautiful enough to waste your life for. – Hans Ree (1944- )
The pin is mightier than the sword. – Fred Reinfeld (1910-1964)
Chess is a fighting game which is purely intellectual and includes chance. – Richard Reti (1889-1929)
A knowledge of combinations is the foundation of positional chess. – Richard Reti (1889-1929)
Chess is the only game greater than its players. – Tim Rice (1944- )
For the young, chess is an early lesson in how to control consciousness. – Alexey Root (1965- )
The Queen’s Gambit is like a piece of dead fish kept overlong on ice. – Tony Santasiere (1904-1977)
Chess is a sad waste of brains. – Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
Chess is the art of human reason. – Gustavus Selenus (1579-1666)
Chess is not relaxing; it’s stressful even if you win. – Jennifer Shahade (1980- )
Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time. – George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Chess is ruthless: you’ve got to be prepared to kill people. – Nigel Short (1965- )
If your opponent offers you a draw, try to work out why he thinks he’s worse off. – Nigel Short (1965- )
The correct way to play chess is to develop each and every piece (chess is a team game!), get your King safely castled, and only then begin more aggressive maneuvers. – Jeremy Silman (1954- )
Chess is a cold bath for the mind. – Sir John Simon (1873-1954)
In chess, as in life, a man is his own most dangerous opponent. – Vasily Smyslov (1921-2010)
Chess is a game of bad moves. – Andy Soltis (1947- )
Chess is really 99 percent calculation. – Andrew Soltis (1947- )
Chess is a substitute for life itself. – David Spanier (1932-2000)
We were like bishops of opposite color. – Boris Spassky (1937- ) about his ex-wife
Chess is like life.” – Boris Spassky (1937- )
The beauty of a game of chess is usually assessed according to the sacrifices it contains. – Rudolf Spielmann (1883-1942)
The game of chess is the most fascinating and intellectual pastime which the wisdom of antiquity has bequeathed to us. – Howard Staunton (1810-1874)
Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack. – William Steinitz (1836-1900)
Chess is intellectual gymnastics. – William Steinitz (1836-1900)
‘Chess is so inspiring that I do not beieve a good player is capable of having an evil thought during the game. – William Steinitz (1836-1900)
There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones, and mine. – Mikhail Tal (1936-1992)
To play for a draw, at any rate with White, is to some degree a crime against chess. – Mikhail Tal (1936-1992)
Chess, like love, like music, has the powers to make men happy. – Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934) (source: The Game of Chess, 1935, page xi)
Many have become chess masters – no one has become the master of chess, – Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934)
Between the opening and endgame the gods have placed the middlegame. – Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934)
When you don’t know what to do, wait for your opponent to get an idea; it is sure to be bad. – Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934)
White lost because he failed to remember the right continuation and had to think up the moves himself. – Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934)
All chess players should have a hobby. – Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)
Chess is a fairy tale of 1,001 blunders. – Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)
Nobody ever won a game of chess by resigning. – Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)
It is always better to sacrifice your opponent’s men. – Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)
The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake. – Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)
Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do; strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do. – Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)
The mistakes are all there, waiting to be made. – Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956) (source: Die Hypermoderne Schachpartie, 1924, p. 90)
Chess is 99 percent tactics. – Richard Teichmann (1868-1925)
Chess is a game which reflects most honor on human wit. – Voltaire (1694-1778)
For chess, the superb, cold, infinitely satisfying adodyne to life, I feel the ardor of a lover, the humility of a disciple. – Herbert Russell Wakefield (1888-1964)
Chess is a board game with a checkered past. – Bill Wall (1951- )
The hardest win in chess is stalemate. – Bill Wall (1951- )
There is no remorse like a remorse of chess. It is a curse upon man. There is no happiness in chess. – H.G. Wells (1886-1946)
Chess is for everybody. – Patrick Wolff (1968- )
Chess is a game of understanding and not of memory. – Eugene Znosko-Borovsky (1884-1954)
Chess is the struggle against error. – Johannes Zukertort (1842-1888)

–Bill Wall (you can quote me)