Checkmate Quotes

• In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.

  Isaac Asimov

  Life, Games, Chess Game

  139 Copy quote

• On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long

  Emanuel Lasker

  Truth, Lying, Long

  Emanuel Lasker (2013). “Lasker's Manual of Chess”, p.9, Courier Corporation

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• The rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature.

  Thomas Huxley

  Expanding Universe, Law, Games

  'Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews' (1870) 'A Liberal Education'

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• ... the woman who grows up with the idea that she is simply to be an amiable animal, to be caressed and coaxed, is invariably a bitterly disappointed woman. A game of chess will cure such a conceit forever. The woman that knows the most, thinks the most, feels the most, is the most. Intellectual affection is the only lasting love. Love that has a game of chess in it can checkmate any man and solve the problem of life.

  Charles Dickens

  Growing Up, Women, Thinking

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• When neither party can give checkmate, the game is drawn

  Howard Staunton

  Party, Games, Giving

  Howard Staunton (1873). “The Chess-player's Handbook: A Popular and Scientific Introduction to the Game of Chess, Exemplified in Games Actually Played by the Greatest Masters, and Illustrated by Numerous Diagrams of Original and Remarkable Positions”, p.21

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• We all play chess with Fate as partner. He makes a move, we make a move. He tries to checkmate us in three moves, we try to prevent it. We know we can't win, but we're driven to give him a good fight.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Moving, Fighting, Fate

  Isaac Bashevis Singer (1982). “The collected stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer”, Vintage

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• Death is not a checkmate…it is more like a carnival trick. You cannot win, no matter how you move your Queen.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Queens, Moving, Winning

  Catherynne M. Valente (2014). “The Fairyland Series”, p.174, Macmillan

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• Woe to he who checkmates his opponents at last, only to discover they have been playing cribbage.

  Jedediah Berry

  Opponents, Woe, Lasts

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• On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in the checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Lying, Hypocrite, Hypocrisy

  Emanuel Lasker (2013). “Lasker's Manual of Chess”, p.9, Courier Corporation

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• In the name of God! You, demon, born in the dark! I seal you here! Checkmate!

  Arina Tanemura

  Dark, Names, Demon

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• I’m never gonna wait that extra twenty minutes to text you back, and I’m never gonna play hard to get when I know your life has been hard enough already. When we all know everyone’s life has been hard enough already it’s hard to watch the game we make of love, like everyone’s playing checkers with their scars, saying checkmate whenever they get out without a broken heart. Just to be clear I don’t want to get out without a broken heart. I intend to leave this life so shattered there’s gonna have to be a thousand separate heavens for all of my flying parts.

  Andrea Gibson

  Heart, Enough Already, Play Hard

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• Modern Chess is too much concerned with things like Pawn structure. Forget it, Checkmate ends the game

  Nigel Short

  Games, Chess Game, Too Much

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• 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

  Player, Games, Chess Game

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• If you look at the democratic process as a game of chess, there have to be many, many moves before you get to checkmate. And simply because you do not make any checkmate in three moves does not mean it's stalemate. There's a vast difference between no checkmate and stalemate. This is what the democratic process is like.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Moving, Mean, Games

  "Aung San Suu Kyi: 'This government is not capable of running the economy'". TIME Interview, content.time.com. November 15, 1999.

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• I'll listen to you, but you need to treat me with a little respect. Because it doesn't sound like I'm a pawn. Sounds like I'm more of a queen." A vein in his temple began to throb, and she grew bolder, the sense of power emanating from the mark on her chest filing her with the mettle she'd lost after the break-in two years ago. Lowering her voice to a tense whisper, she nipped his earlobe. "Checkmate.

  Larissa Ione

  Queens, Years, Two

  24 Copy quote

• In life, as in Chess, ones own Pawns block ones way. A mans very wealth, ease, leisure, children, books, which should help him to win, more often checkmate him

  Charles Buxton

  Children, Block, Book

  Charles Buxton, John Llewelyn Davies (1873). “Notes of Thought”, p.277

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• The friend who knows a lot more than you do will bring difficulties, and grief, and sickness, as medicine, as happiness, as the essence of the moment when you're beaten when you hear Checkmate, and can finally say, I trust you to kill me.

  Rumi

  Grief, Medicine, Essence

  Rumi (2015). “Selected Poems”, p.227, Penguin UK

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• 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

  Life, Player, Games

  'Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews' (1870) 'A Liberal Education'

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• The strong are strengthened by reverses; the trouble is that the true meaning of events scores next to nothing in the match we play with men. Appearances decide our gains or losses and the points are trumpery. And a mere semblance of defeat may hopelessly checkmate us.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Strong, Loss, Men

  17 Copy quote

• In mathematics, if I find a new approach to a problem, another mathematician might claim that he has a better, more elegant solution. In chess, if anybody claims he is better than I, I can checkmate him.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Might, Chess, Problem

  67 Copy quote

• Seize the outpost K5 with your knight, and you can go to sleep. Checkmate will come by itself.

  Savielly Tartakower

  Sleep, Knights, Chess

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• If I'm too old to be Emo, how do you account for the very Emo and very old Edgar Allan Poe? Checkmate!

  John Green

  Emo, Allan Poe, Accounts

  12 Copy quote