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• ...for chess, that superb, cold, infinitely satisfying anodyne to life, I feel the ardor of a lover, the humility of a disciple. —Herbert Russell Wakefield

A

• A man surprised is half beaten. - Proverb
• All that matters on the chessboard is good moves. - Bobby Fischer
• 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! - Tartakover
• A good player is always lucky. - Capablanca
• Amberley excelled at chess—one mark, Watson, of a scheming mind. —Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman"

B

• Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be. -Small Gods

C

• Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy. —Siegbert Tarrasch
• Chess is in its essence a game, in its form an art, and in its execution a science. —Baron Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa
• Chess is the game which reflects most honour on human wit. —Voltaire
• Chess is eminently and emphatically the philosopher's game. —Paul Morphy
• Chess is the touchstone of intellect. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Chess is a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe. —Indian proverb
• Chess is mental torture. —Garry Kasparov
• Chess is so deep, I simply feel lost. —Vladimir Kramnik
• [Chess is] as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency. - Raymond Chandler in The Long Goodbye
• Chess is a fathead and feudal game —Georges Perec (in a book promoting Go)
• Chess is a fairy tale of 1001 blunders - Tartakover
• Chess is a beautiful mistress. - Larsen
• Chess is life - Bobby Fischer
• Chess is like life - Boris Spassky
• Chess is everything - art, science, and sport. - Karpov
• Chess is 99 percent tactics. - Teichmann
• Chess is really 99 percent calculation - Soltis
• Chess is ruthless: you've got to be prepared to kill people. - Nigel Short
• Chess is as much a mystery as women - Purdy

I

• I'd rather have a pawn than a finger. —Reuben Fine
• It all depends: which pawn and which finger? —Roman Dzindzichashvili
• If chess is a Battle then Go is War -Anonymous
• It's the horsey-shape piece that moves in an L shape. It's what makes chess complicated, and why stupid people can't play chess. Go play checkers! Knights are the first piece you look at. They elevate the game. No chess master wants to lose her knights. -Courtney Love

L

• Life is too short for chess. - Lord Byron
• Life is a kind of chess. -Benjamin Franklin
• Life is like a game of Chess, changing with each move. - Lelouch Lamperouge

O

• Of chess it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is the fault of life, not chess. —attributed to both Irving Chernev and William Ewart Napier
• Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box —Italian proverb

P

• Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine. - Spielmann

T

• 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
• The pawns are the soul of chess. - Philidor
• The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made. - Tartakover
• The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake. - Tartakover
• There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones and mine. - Tal

V

• Vimes had never got on with any game much more complex than darts. Chess in particular had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the kings lounged about doing nothing that always got to him; if only the pawns united, maybe talked the rooks round, the whole board could've been a republic in a dozen moves. -Thud!

W

• When the chess game is over, the pawn and the king go back to the same box - Irish saying contributed by Etienne Goldstein

Advice on the game of Chess

• The middlegame I repeat is chess itself; chess with all its possibilities, its attacks, defences, sacrifices, etc. - Znosko-Borovsky
• Methodical thinking is of more use in chess than inspiration. - Purdy
• Chess is the art of analysis. - Botvinnik
• Chess mastery essentially consists of analysing chess positions accurately. - Botvinnik
• 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
• Even a poor plan is better than no plan at all. - Mikhail Chigorin
• It is not a move, even the best move, that you must seek, but a realisable plan. - Znosko-Borovsky
• The defensive power of a pinned piece is only imaginary. - Nimzovich
• The combination player thinks forward; he starts from the given position, and tries the forceful moves in his mind. - Emanuel Lasker
• Discovered check is the dive-bomber of the chessboard. - Fine
• If the student forces himself to examine all moves that smite, however absurd they may look at first glance, he is on the way to becoming a master of tactics. - Purdy
• The tactician knows what to do when there is something to do; whereas the strategian knows what to do when there is nothing to do. - Gerald Abrahams
• Examine moves that smite! A good eye for smites is far more important than a knowledge of strategical principles. - Purdy
• The scheme of a game is played on positional lines; the decision of it, as a rule, is effected by combinations. - Reti
• 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
• 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. - Tarrasch
• It's always better to sacrifice your opponent's men. - Tartakover
• Before the endgame, the gods have placed the middlegame. - Tarrasch
• When you see a good move, look for a better one. —Emanuel Lasker
• The Pin is mightier than the sword. —Fred Reinfeld
• Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation. —Max Euwe
• All that matters on the Chessboard is good moves. —Bobby Fischer
• The great master places a Knight at K5 (e5); checkmate follows by itself. -Savielly Tartakower
• First restrain, next blockade, lastly destroy. - Aron Nimzowitsch
• It is not a move, even the best move, that you must seek, but a realisable plan. - Eugene Znosko-Borovsky
• Play the opening like a book, the middlegame like a magician and the endgame like a machine - Rudolf Spielmann