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Chess Quotations

Not Really About Chess, But . . .

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. – Buddha

It's not the will to win that counts. Everybody has that. It's the will to prepare to win that's important. – Bear Bryant

A man can seldom - very, very, seldom - fight a winning fight against his training; the odds are too heavy. – Mark Twain

The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital. – Joe Paterno

A man who is well prepared has already fought half the battle. – Cervantes

The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand. – Sun Tzu

I believe that man's finest hour, in fact, his greatest fulfillment, his finest fulfillment, is that moment when he has worked his heart out and for a good cause and lies exhausted but victorious on the field of battle - whenever - wherever that field of battle may be. – Vince Lombardi

The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand. – Vince Lombardi

Training gives us an outlet for suppressed energies created by stress and thus tone the spirit just as exercise conditions the body. – Arnold Schwarzenegger

If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat. – Herschel Walker

My God given talent is my ability to stick with training longer than anybody else. – Herschel Walker

If you don't invest very much, then defeat doesn't hurt very much and winning is not very exciting. – Dick Vermeil

Those who do not study are only cattle dressed up in men's clothes. – Chinese Proverb

The more we study the more we discover our ignorance. – Percy Shelley

He, who has imagination without learning, has wings and no feet. – Joubert

If a person understands the nature of reality then no commandments are necessary. But if a person doesn’t understand what’s really happening, then ten times ten times ten commandments won’t be enough. – Source Unknown

Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification. – Martin Fischer

It is necessary to try to surpass oneself always; this occupation ought to last as long as life. – Christina, Queen of Sweden

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end in life. – Robert Louis Stevenson

It’s never too late to be what you might have been. – George Eliott

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Confucius

If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride and never quit, you'll be a winner. The price of victory is high but so are the rewards. – Bear Bryant

What we think about and affirm becomes belief. What we believe long and strong enough becomes a conviction. Our convictions lead us to our actions. This may be one of the most important things we ever learn because this can play itself out either way. If we continually affirm bad thoughts in our lives we will lead ourselves down the road to bad actions. Bad thoughts never lead to good actions! The reverse is true too. If we think good thoughts and affirm positive things in our minds and hearts, eventually those affirmations and thoughts will work themselves out to become our actions - good actions! This is why it is so important to take control of our minds and what we are thinking, pondering and affirming all day! Because eventually you will act on those thoughts! Action Point: Try to remain disciplined in your thinking today. I find many people, myself included, sort of "wander" into their bad thinking. But today, catch yourself! And when you catch yourself making bad affirmations, choose to then think the opposite, good thoughts. If you can, say them out loud. Begin to change those thoughts and affirmations and you will change your actions - and your world! – Chris Widener

Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. – Clint Eastwood (Heartbreak Ridge)

To win you have to risk loss. – Jean-Claude Killy

The price to pay keeps the vast majority from becoming proficient. – Source Unknown

I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I love to play. – Boris Becker

There's always the motivation of wanting to win. Everybody has that. But a champion needs, in his attitude, a motivation above and beyond winning. – Pat Riley

Experience shows that people are most active in pursuit of a goal when the likelihood of success is about 50 percent. Any “50/50” activity requires belief that you will succeed; at the same time, it must also allow you to believe in it. When belief is not necessary (100% guaranteed success) or impossible (when there is a 100% chance of failure), work becomes soulless and repellent; and, for that reason, of little value. – Simon Soloveychik

Winning is not a sometime thing; It's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. – Vince Lombardi

All right Mister, let me tell you what winning means; you're willing to go longer, work harder, give more than anyone else. – Vince Lombardi

Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream. – Emmitt Smith

Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is. – Vince Lombardi

Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is. – Zig Ziglar

I do not think that winning is the most important thing. I think winning is the only thing. – Bill Veeck

Winning is only half of it. Having fun is the other half. – Bum Phillips

A warrior must only take care that his spirit is never broken. – Shissai

Losing is like death. –George Allen

Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. – Vince Lombardi

You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you'll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit. – Joe Paterno

There is no glory in outstripping donkeys. – Martial

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape. – Source Unknown

If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see fortune. – Frances Bacon

Trivial facts are often the best hints to what is going on. – J. M. Roberts

It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see. – Winston Churchill

Once you have missed the first buttonhole, you'll never manage to button up. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are some remedies worse than the disease. – Publius Syrus

I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem. – Ashleigh Brilliant

The solution of every problem is another problem. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The anointed don't like to talk about painful trade-offs. They like to talk about happy "solutions" that get rid of the whole problem - at least in their imagination. – Thomas Sowell

The pen is the tongue of the mind. – Cervantes

What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred? – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. – Francis Bacon

There are people who have a collection of books like Eunuchs have a Harem. – Victor Hugo.

It is with books as with men - a very small number play a great part, the rest are lost in the multitude. – Voltaire

Young men should prove theorems, old men should write books. – G. H. Hardy

The road to wisdom? Well, it's plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again, but less and less and less. – Piet Hein

Just as some plants bear fruit only if they don't shoot up too high, so in practical arts the leaves and flowers of theory must be pruned and the plant kept close to its proper soil - experience. – Carl von Clausewitz

Wisdom is the daughter of experience. – Leonardo da Vinci

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other. – Edmund Burke

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning. – Benjamin Disraeli

There are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience. – Roger Bacon

The best and fastest way to learn a sport is to watch and imitate a champion. – Jean-Claude Killy

We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size. – Bernard of Chartres

If I’ve seen further than others, it’s because I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants. – Isaac Newton

Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius. – Henri Frederic Amiel

The slowness of genius is hard to bear, but the slowness of mediocrity is intolerable. – Henry Thomas Buckle

What can be said to be permanent in this fleeting world, if not our remembrance of the deeds of great men? – Ludwig Bauer

Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars. – Heraclitus

It is not enough to have great qualities; we should also have the management of them. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. – Albert Einstein

To call his understanding of theory abysmal is to leave no suitable word to describe his grasp of its practice. – Terry Pratchett

You can't depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus. – Mark Twain

A fool hath no dialogue within himself; the first thought carrieth him without the reply of a second. – Lord Halifax

No days unalert; fate likes to play the buffoon, and to upset everything unawares in order to catch the sleeping; always stand ready for inspection in spirit, in mind, and in fortitude, for the day that these are left to themselves becomes the day of their downfall. Not to give the matter a thought is to be slated for destruction. – Baltasar Gracian

One's own independent judgment is the means by which one must choose one's actions, but it is not a moral criterion nor a moral validation; only reference to a demonstrable principle can validate one's choices. – Ayn Rand

No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the sum of his knowledge. – Ayn Rand

There is no room for the arbitrary in any activity of man, least of all in his method of cognition. And just as he has learned to be guided by objective criteria in making his physical tools, so he must be guided by objective criteria in forming his tools of cognition: his concepts. – Ayn Rand

The phrases men are accustomed to repeat incessantly end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We sometimes get all the information, but we refuse to get the message. – Cullen Hightower

Think ahead: today for tomorrow, and for many days beyond; the wisest of precautions, to take time for this: for to the ready there are no accidents, and to the forewarned no dangers. – Baltasar Gracian

Think, and most about that which is more important. All the fools get lost because they do not think. They never see the half of things, and knowing neither their loss nor their profit, they make small effort in either direction. – Baltasar Gracian

The spread of secondary and latterly of tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytic thought. – Peter Medawar

Most people can't think; most of the remainder won't think; the small fraction who do think, mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion - in the long run, these are the only people who count. – Robert Heinlein

Thinking gets more expensive every year. – Fritz Leiber

Facts do not "speak for themselves." They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities. – Thomas Sowell

Knowledge can be enormously costly, and is often scattered in widely uneven fragments, too small to be individually usable in decision making. The communication and coordination of these scattered fragments of knowledge is one of the basic problems - perhaps "the" basic problem - of any society. – Thomas Sowell

Ideas, as the raw material from which knowledge is produced, exist in superabundance, but that makes the production of knowledge more difficult rather than easier. Many ideas - probably most - will have to be discarded somewhere in the process of producing authenticated knowledge. Authentication is as important as the raw information itself, and the manner and speed of the authentication process can be crucial. – Thomas Sowell

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time with a steady eye. – Winston Churchill

We do not deal much in fact when we are contemplating ourselves. – Mark Twain

Get the facts first. You can distort them later. – Mark Twain

We are anxious when there is a dissonance between our "knowledge" and the perceivable facts. Since our "knowledge" is not to be doubted or questioned, it is the facts that have to be altered. – Nathaniel Branden

We do not know a truth without knowing its cause. – Aristotle

To know truly is to know by causes. – Francis Bacon

The thinker makes a great mistake when he asks after cause and effect. They both together make up the indivisible phenomena. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

However brilliant an action may be, it should not be accounted great when it is not the result of great purpose. – Duc de La Rochefoucauld

We think in generalities, but we live in details. – Alfred North Whitehead

Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Don’t try to fathom the unfathomable. – Kozma Prutkov

We hear and apprehend only what we already half know. – Henry David Thoreau

Sometimes the subconscious mind manifests a wisdom several steps or even years ahead of the conscious mind, and has its own way of leading us toward our destiny. – Nathaniel Branden

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. – Henri Bergson

We usually see only the things we are looking for - so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not. – Eric Hoffer

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust

Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas. – Alfred North Whitehead

Originality consists of the achievement of new combinations, and not of the creation of something out of nothing. – Richard Clemence

A man's mind stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it. – Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all. – John F. Kennedy

Only he who handles his ideas lightly is master of his ideas, and only he who is master of his ideas is not enslaved by them. – Lin Yutang

Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought. – Lin Yutang

A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it. – Rabindranath Tagore

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. – Albert Einstein

To stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition. – Albert Einstein

Great innovators and original thinkers and artists attract the wrath of mediocrities as lightning rods draw the flashes. – Theodor Reik

Dare to be original. The graveyard of mankind is littered with the bones and ashes of countless men too timid to express their ideas. – Source Unknown

An idea must originate from where it is. – Archil Ebralidze

Artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue. Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid. – Jules Feiffer

Great composers do not borrow - they steal. – Igor Stravinsky

Revolutions are prepared by geniuses, perpetrated by fanatics, and the fruits are reaped by scoundrels. – Baron Otto von Bismarck

Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to error that counts. – Nikki Giovanni

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. – James Joyce

Collective judgment of new ideas is so often wrong that it is arguable that progress depends on individuals being free to back their own judgment despite collective disapproval. – W. A. Lewis

In this life, stormy like a sea, there is one refuge: disdain future vicissitudes, stand dependably and openly, staunchly meet the blows of fortune, do not hide and do not flinch. – Seneca

Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat. – George Eliot

Never change a winning game; always change a losing one. – Bill Tilden

He who moves not forward, goes backward. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The man who aims for the center of the target will win the prize, but the one who aims to win the prize will miss the target. – Zen proverb

For the want of a horse a rider was lost. – Ben Franklin

A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse! – Richard III (Shakespeare)

A man does not die of threats. – Ancient Proverb

Don't get into an arse-kicking contest with a porcupine. – Terry Pratchett

My handicraft is retaliation - revenge is my trade – Friedrich von Schiller

Get ready, little lady. Hell is coming to breakfast. – Clint Eastwood (The Outlaw Josey Wales)

A masterpiece is a masterpiece though a million people say so. – Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth. – Archimedes

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it is lightning that does the work. – Mark Twain

Let a Lord once own the happy lines, how the wit brightens! – Alexander Pope

My center is giving way, my Kingside is pushed back, situation excellent, I am attacking. – Marshal Ferdinand Foch

The instinct of workmanship, the thrill of vicarious struggle. – Source Unknown

We are accustomed to see men deride what they do not understand, and snarl at the good and beautiful because it lies beyond their sympathies. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is in true beauty, something which vulgar souls cannot admire. – William Congreve

The wise learn many things from their foes. – Aristophanes

It is sweet indeed to contemplate from the shore the perils of the sailor struggling with death. – Horace

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Beware the fury of a patient man. – John Dryden

Malice is ever alert and much thought is necessary to outwit her; a gambler does not play the card which his opponent expects, much less that which he desires. – Baltasar Gracian

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as the night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt. – Sun Tzu

Those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him. – Sun Tzu

When you have attained the Way of strategy there will not be one thing you cannot understand. You will see the Way in everything. – Miyamoto Musashi

How can one obtain tiger cubs without entering the tiger's lair? – Chinese proverb

We must despise our opponents strategically, yet respect them tactically. – Mao Tse Tung

We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports. – Mao Tse Tung

Enemy advances, we retreat; enemy halts, we harass; enemy tires, we attack; enemy retreats, we pursue. – Mao Tse Tung

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. – Will Rogers

I know that I can perish, but the main thing is that I am setting on a voyage. – Ulysses

There are costs and risks to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. – John F. Kennedy

If a man look sharply and attentively he shall see fortune. – Frances Bacon

Don't be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small steps. – David Lloyd George

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir your blood to action. Make big plans; aim high in work and hope. – Daniel Burnham

Pursue your advantage. Some spend everything in getting started, and so never get anywhere; they plan but they do not build. Some sweat to conquer a difficulty, only to rest content in their labors; not knowing how to bring the victory home. – Baltasar Gracian

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal. – Hannah More

Approach the easy as though it were difficult, and the difficult as though it were easy; the first, lest overconfidence make you careless, and the second, lest faint-heartedness make you afraid; nothing more is required in order to do nothing, than to think it done; to go at the job, on the other hand, accomplishes the impossible; but the greatest undertakings should not be overly pondered, lest contemplation of difficulties too clearly foreseen appall you. – Baltasar Gracian

Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent. – Euripides

A keen and dogmatic sense of prudence is the mortal enemy of great deeds. – Michel de Montaigne

Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. – 2 Timothy 2:23-25

Whenever possible, let cold deliberation take the place of sudden outburst; which should not prove difficult for one who has prudence. – Baltasar Gracian

Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm. – Malayan proverb

Do not regard your opponent as a sheep, but rather as a wolf. – Russian Proverb

Never out of stubbornness hold to the wrong side, just because your adversary anticipated you, and chose the right, for then you are beaten from the start and will have to retire in disgrace. The right is never saved through the wrong; the opponent was clever to preempt the better side. – Baltasar Gracian

Wait not while your foe fits arrow to bowstring when you can send your own arrow into him. – Babur (16th century emperor of India)

Do, or do not. There is no 'try'. – Yoda

The winner of a battle is the one who gets there firstest with the mostest. – Nathan Bedford Forrest, a confederate cavalry commander

The early bird catches the worm. – Ancient proverb

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. – Edmund Burke

The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men. – B. H. Liddell Hart

The small man is one who throws away his opportunities, whereas great deeds are accomplished through utilizing the mistakes of others and inflexibly following them up. – Li Ssu

Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays. – Friedrich von Schiller

The games we play reveal our essence, and we place in those games the expectation that something larger, more mysterious, more transforming might arise in our ordinary lives. – Ken Burns