75 Best Chess Quotes of All time !

75 best chess quotes : You will find in this article, a digest of the best chess quotes!

If you like chess, you will find some rare pearls in this rating! Here we go. 🙂

1. I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.

Marcel Duchamp

2. Unlike other games in which lucre is the end and aim, [chess] recommends itself to the wise by the fact that its mimic battles are fought for no prize but honor. It is eminently and emphatically the philosopher’s game.

Paul Morphy

3. The beauty of chess is it can be whatever you want it to be. It transcends language, age, race, religion, politics, gender, and socioeconomic background. Whatever your circumstances, anyone can enjoy a good fight to the death over the chess board.

Simon Williams

4. Chess is the struggle against the error.

Johannes Zukertort

5. Every chess master was once a beginner.

Irving Chernev

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

Ralph Charell

7. Chess makes men wiser and clear-sighted.

Vladimir Putin

8. Chess is the gymnasium of the mind.

Blaise Pascal

9. 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

10. Nobody ever won a chess game by resigning.

Savielly Tartakower

11. The game of chess is not merely an idle amusement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened by it… Life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with.

Benjamin Franklin

12. As proved by evidence, [chess is] more lasting in its being and presence than all books and achievements; the only game that belongs to all people and all ages; of which none knows the divinity that bestowed it on the world, to slay boredom, to sharpen the senses, to exhilarate the spirit.

Stefan Zweig

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

Bobby Fischer

14. 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

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

Hein Donner

16. I used to attack because it was the only thing I knew. Now I attack because I know it works best.

Garry Kasparov

17. It is my style to take my opponent and myself on to unknown grounds. A game of chess is not an examination of knowledge; it is a battle of nerves.

David Bronstein

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

David Shenk

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

Emanuel Lasker

20. 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

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

Savielly Tartakower

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

Rudolph Spielmann

23. In life, as in chess, one’s own pawns block one’s way.  A man’s very wealthy, ease, leisure, children, books, which should help him to win, more often checkmate him.

Charles Buxton

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

Siegbert Tarrasch

25. There is no remorse like the remorse of chess.

H. G. Wells

26. The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made.

Savielly Tartakower

27. Up to this point, White has been following well-known analysis. But now he makes a fatal error: he begins to use his own head.

Siegbert Tarrasch

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

David Shenk

29. 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

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

Hans Ree

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

Nigel Short

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

Robert Hübner

33. It will be cheering to know that many people are skillful chess players, though in many instances their brains, in a general way, compare unfavorably with the cognitive faculties of a rabbit.

James Mortimer

34. The pen is mightier than the sword.

Fred Reinfeld

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

Lodewijk Prins

36. One bad move nullifies forty good ones.

Bernhard Horwitz

37. 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

38. Adequate compensation for a sacrifice is having a sound combination leading to a winning position; adequate compensation for a blunder is having your opponent snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

Bruce A. Moon

39. Combinations have always been the most intriguing aspect of Chess. The masters look for them, the public applauds them, the critics praise them. It is because combinations are possible that Chess is more than a lifeless mathematical exercise. They are the poetry of the game; they are to Chess what melody is to music. They represent the triumph of mind over matter

Reuben Fine

40. The most important feature of the Chess position is the activity of the pieces. This is absolutely fundamental in all phases of the game: Opening, Middlegame and especially Endgame. The primary constraint on a piece’s activity is the Pawn structure

Michael Stean

41. 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

42. 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 Tinman

43. Alekhine is a poet who creates a work of art out of something that would hardly inspire another man to send home a picture post card

Max Euwe

44. A Chess game is a dialogue, a conversation between a player and his opponent. Each move by the opponent may contain threats or be a blunder, but a player cannot defend against threats or take advantage of blunders if he does not first ask himself: What is my opponent planning after each move?

Bruce A. Moon

45. Chess books should be used as we use glasses: to assist the sight, although some players make use of them as if they thought they conferred sight

Jose Raul Capablanca

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

Emanuel Lasker

47. A Chess game is divided into three stages: the first, when you hope you have the advantage, the second when you believe you have an advantage, and the third… when you know you’re going to lose!

Savielly Tartakower

48. Chess is thirty to forty percent psychology. You don’t have this when you play a computer. I can’t confuse it

Judith Polgar

49. The passed Pawn is a criminal, who should be kept under lock and key. Mild measures, such as police surveillance, are not sufficient

Aaron Nimzovich

50. Via the squares on the chessboard, the Indians explain the movement of time and the age, the higher influences which control the world and the ties which link Chess with the human soul

Al-Masudi

51. 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 its really a good idea and whether there are other better idea

Stanley Kubrick

52. Of all my Russian books, the defense contains and diffuses the greatest ’warmth’ which may seem odd seeing how  supremely abstract Chess is supposed to be

Vladimir Nabokov

53. A thorough understanding of the typical mating continuations makes the most complicated sacrificial combinations leading up to them not only not difficult, but almost a matter of course

Siegbert Tarrasch

54. Though most people love to look at the games of the great attacking masters, some of the most successful players in history have been the quiet positional players. They slowly grind you down by taking away your space, tying up your pieces, and leaving you with virtually nothing to do!

Yasser Seirawan)

55. Look at Garry Kasparov. After he loses, invariably he wins the next game. He just kills the next guy. That’s something that we have to learn to be able to do

Maurice Ashley

56. Chess is a terrible game. If you have no center, your opponent has a freer position. If you do have a center, then you really have something to worry about!

Siegbert Tarrasch

57. 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

58. In the perfect Chess combination as in a first-rate short story, the whole plot and counter-plot should lead up to a striking finale, the interest not being allayed until the very last moment

Yates and Winter

59. I believe that Chess possesses a magic that is also a help in advanced age. A rheumatic knee is forgotten during a game of Chess and other events can seem quite unimportant in comparison with a catastrophe on the chessboard

60. Chess is a more highly symbolic game, but the aggressions are therefore even more frankly represented in the play. It probably began as a war game; that is, the representation of a miniature battle between the forces of two kingdoms

Karl Meninger

63. 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

64. 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

Jose Raul Capablanca

65. Chess, like any creative activity, can exist only through the combined efforts of those who have creative talent, and those who have the ability to organize their creative work

Mikhail Botvinnik

66. Botvinnik tried to take the mystery out of Chess, always relating it to situations in ordinary life. He used to call Chess a typical inexact problem similar to those which people are always having to solve in everyday life

Garry Kasparov

67. Live, lose, and learn, by observing your opponent how to win

Amber Steenbock

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

Aaron Nimzovich

69. The only thing Chess players have in common is Chess

Lodewijk Prins

70. We must make sure that Chess will not be like a dead language, very interesting, but for a very small group

Sytze Faber

71. Nowadays, when you’re not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it

Anand Viswanathan

72. In Chess, as it is played by masters, chance is practically eliminated

Emanuel Lasker

73. Checkers is for tramps

Paul Morphy

74. We like to think

Gary Kasparov

75. Dazzling combinations are for the many, shifting wood is for the few

Georg Kieninger

I hope you enjoyed the ranking. I invite you to have a look at this post if you are interested in chess. 🙂

The rules of chess : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess