Chess Pieces Quotes

• Help your pieces so they can help you

  Paul Morphy

  Helping, Strategy, Pieces

  92 Copy quote

• 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 it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.

  Stanley Kubrick

  Moving, Learning, Heart

  Newsweek, May 26, 1980.

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

  Ralph Charell

  Independent, Player, Thinking

  21 Copy quote

• The defensive power of a pinned piece is only imaginary

  Aron Nimzowitsch

  Chess Game, Tactics, Imaginary

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• A passed pawn increase in strength as the number of pieces on the board diminishes.

  Jose Raul Capablanca

  Numbers, Boards, Pawns

  José Raúl Capablanca (1921). “Chess Fundamentals”, Harcourt

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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 King is a fighting piece. Use it!

  Wilhelm Steinitz

  Kings, Fighting, Use

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• Spying is a like a game of chess: Sometimes you have to withdraw, sometimes you have to sacrifice one of your pieces to win - preferably a knight rather than a king or queen.

  John Rhys-Davies

  Kings, Queens, Sacrifice

  "John Rhys-davies on Indiana Jones and Almost Passing on Lord of the Rings". Interview with Will Harris, www.avclub.com. September 18, 2012.

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• The Chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chessboard, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem

  Marcel Duchamp

  Beauty, Block, Design

  Ecke Bonk, Marcel Duchamp (1989). “Marcel Duchamp, the box in a valise: De ou par Marcel Duchamp ou Rrose Sélavy : inventory of an edition”, Rizzoli Intl Pubns

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• The Pawns are the soul of the game

  Francois-Andre Danican Philidor

  Games, Chess Game, Soul

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• There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones and mine

  Mikhail Tal

  Sacrifice, Chess Game, Two

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• Do you realize Fischer almost never has any bad pieces? He exchanges them, and the bad pieces remain with his opponents

  Yuri Balashov

  Chess Game, Opponents, Realizing

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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 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

  Games, Chess Game, Important

  Michael Stean (2013). “Simple Chess: New Algebraic Edition”, p.7, Courier Corporation

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• To avoid losing a piece, many a person has lost the game

  Savielly Tartakower

  Sacrifice, Games, Chess Game

  34 Copy quote

• My problem with chess was that all my pieces wanted to end the game as soon as possible.

  Dave Barry

  Games, Literature, Problem

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• Bobby just drops the pieces and they fall on the right squares

  Miguel Najdorf

  Fall, Squares, Chess Game

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• I'm not much of a chess player, but there is an aspect of the game that I find fascinating. After a while, you can almost see lines of force between the pieces. Areas of danger where it is physically impossible to move pieces into. Clouds of possibility, forbidden zones.

  Hannu Rajaniemi

  Moving, Player, Games

  8 Copy quote

• Who is your opponent tonight, tonight I am playing against the Black pieces

  Akiba Rubinstein

  Black, Tonight, Opponents

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• 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

  Success, Player, Games

  26 Copy quote

• I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Frustration, Games, Chess Game

  Soren Kierkegaard (1946). “Either/or”

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• It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Life, Mistake, Moving

  FaceBook post by Kazuo Ishiguro from Aug 31, 2014

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• Weak points or holes in the opponent's position must be occupied by pieces not Pawns

  Siegbert Tarrasch

  Opponents, Pawns, Weak Points

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• The queen was my favorite chess piece. Unlike the women I knew in real life, she was powerful. Her job was to defend her husband at all costs, because while he was weak and practically defenseless—only allowed to move one square at a time—she was the strongest player on the board, hindered by no restrictions at all.

  Rachel Vincent

  Jobs, Queens, Powerful

  Rachel Vincent (2016). “Stray”, p.75, MIRA

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• I'm a chess piece. A pawn,' she said. 'I can be sacrificed, but I cannot be captured. To be captured would be the end of the game.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Games, Chess Game, Would Be

  6 Copy quote