Life imitates Chess : favorite quotes
“Karpov’s intentions are noticeable only when it is too late for his opponents to react” Mikhail Tal about Karpov
“Grab him by the balls, but only one, not both!” Spassky to Kasparov about Petrossian
“The virtue of innovation rarely compensate the vice of inadequation” Kasparov
“A wish is not an objective” Kasparov
“Plan without acting is futile, acting without planning is fatal” Kasparov
“Strategy without tactic is the longest path to victory. Tactic without strategy is the shortest to defeat” Sun Tzu
“Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do, Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do” Xavier Grigoryevich Tartacover
“Vigilant inaction in chess is action” Tigran Petrossian
“Winning through bad strategy but good tactics or luck is more damaging on the long term than losing because of poor tactics. Pay attention to the reasons of your victories even more so than to those of your defeats” Kasparov
“I only see one move ahead, but it’s always the right one” Jose Raul Capablanca
“Bismarck made the mistake of thinking his opponents would do a blunder he would himself never have done” Kasparov
“Whatever the belief you have in your conclusions, you have to check them through analysis” Kasparov
“Just like the proverbial tree falling in the forest without anyone to hear it, unknown talent is inexistant” Kasparov
“I really believe in luck, and I have noticed that the harder I work, the more luck I have” Thomas Jefferson
“The source of originality is hard work” Kasparov
“If you want to succeed, double your rate of failure” Thomas Watson
“I did not fail, I just found 10 000 ways that did not work” Thomas Edison
“To know is not to act” Carl Von Clausewitz
“A chess game can be divided in 3 parts : the first one, in which you hope to get a lead, the second in which you think you have a lead, and the third, in which you become aware that you are losing!” Xavier Tartacover
“One you have initiative, you MUST exploit it, and constantly feed it. Wilhelm Steinitz reminded us that the player who has the advantage MUST attack, otherwise he would forfeit his lead” Kasparov
“To have a lead means keeping your opponent unbalanced, and push him to move in specific ways. Being in defensive position, he has to play to block and in urgency, but under constant pressure, this task soon becomes impossible” Kasparov
“In chess we have the “principle of 2 weak points”, it is rare to be able to beat a good player with a single angle of attack. Instead of staying fixed on a single point, we must exploit our pressure to create multiple weak points” Kasparov
“The threat is often stronger than the act that is threatened” Aaron Nimzovitch
“What is most important to attack, is the will to attack” Xavier Tartacover
“Today’s success is the enemy of tomorrow’s success
