Epigrams are terse, witty sayings that sometimes have a meaning or moral.
Chess has an abundance of epigrams from famous people and famous chess
players. Here are a few example of chess epigrams.
"Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten,
but they may start on a team, but one man cannot make a team."
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
"Chess is a good mistress but a bad master." - Gerald Abrahams (1907-1980)
"In chess there is a world of intellectual values." - Gerald Abrahams (1907-1980)
"Chess will always be the master of us all." - Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946)
"Of all the drugs in the world, chess must be the most permanently
pleasurable." - Assaic
"In chess, just as in life, today's bliss may be tomorrow's poison."
- Assaic
"To have a knight planted in your game at K6 is worse than a
rusty nail in your knee." - Efim Bogoljubow (1889-1952)
"Chess is the art of analysis." - Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-1995)
"Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic." - Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-1995)
"The essence of chess is thinking about what chess is." - David Bronstein (1924- )
"Life is too short for chess." - character from Henry J. Byron's play "Our Boys"
"The good player is always lucky." - Jose Capablanca (1888-1942)
"Chess is not for the timid." - Irving Chernev (1900-1981)
"Chess players are madmen of a certain quality, the way the artist
is supposed to be, and isn't, in general." - Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
"Not all artists may be chess players, but all chess players are
artists." - Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
"I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and
much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art
in its social position." - Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
"Chess is a sport. A violent sport." - Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
"Chess holds its master in its own bonds, shakling the mind and brain so that
the inner freedom of the very strongest must suffer." - Alburt Einstein (1879-1955)
"A man that will take back a move at chess will pick a pocket." - Richard Fenton (1837-1916)
"You can only get good at chess if you love the game." - Bobby Fischer (1943- )
"I like to make them squirm." - Bobby Fischer (1943- )
"If I win, I'm a genius. If I don't, I'm not." - Bobby Fischer (1943- )
"Chess is life." - Bobby Fischer (1943- )
"Life is a kind of chess, with struggle, competition, good and ill
events." - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
"You cannot play chess if you are kind-hearted." - French proverb
"Chess is the touchstone of intellect." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Excellence at chess is one mark of a scheming mind." - Sherlock Holmes
"Chess is a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe." -
Indian Proverb
"Chess is everything: art, science, and sport." - Anatoly Karpov (1951- )
"Chess is a test of wills." - Paul Keres (1916-1975)
"Chess is a cure for headaches." - John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)
"I often play a move I know how to refute." - Bent Larsen (1935- )
"On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not survive long." - Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941)
"Chess is only a recreation and not an occupation." - Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924)
"The hardest part of chess is winning a won game." - Frank Marshall (1877-1944)
"Never make a good move too soon." - James Mason (1849-1905)
"It is impossible to win gracefully at chess." - Alan Milne (1882-1956)
"Help your pieces so they can help you." - Paul Morphy (1837-1884)
"Chess is eminently and emphatically the philospher's game." - Paul Morphy (1837-1884)
"The isolated pawn casts gloom over the entire chessboard." - Aaron Nimzovich (1886-1935)
"The loser is always at fault." - Vasily Panov (1906-1973)
"Chess is the gymnasium of the mind." - Blaise Pascal
"The pawn is the soul of chess." - Francois-Andre Danican Philidor (1726-1795)
"Pawn endings are to chess what putting is to golf." - Cecil Purdy (1906-1979)
"Chess is beautiful enough to waste your life for." - Hans Ree
"Chess is a fighting game which is purely intellectual and includes chance." -
Richard Reti (1889-1929)
"The Queen's Gambit is like a piece of dead fish kept overlong on ice."
- Tony Santasiere (1904-1977)
"Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing
something very clever, when they are only wasting their time." -
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"Chess is ruthless: you've got to be prepared to kill people." - Nigel Short (1965- )
"Chess is a cold bath for the mind." - Sir John Simon
"Chess is a game of bad moves." - Andrew Soltis (1947- )
"Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack."
- William Steinitz (1836-1900)
"Between the opening and endgame the gods have placed the middlegame."
- Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934)
"Chess, like love, like music, has the powers to make men happy." - Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934)
"When you don't know what to do, wait for you opponent to get an idea; it is
sure to be bad." - Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934)
"White lost because he failed to remember the right continuation and had
to think up the moves himself." - Siegbert Tarrasch (1862-1934)
"All chessplayers should have a hobby." - Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)
"Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do; strategey is
knowing what to do when there is nothing to do." - Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)
"The blunders are all there, waiting to be made." - Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)
"The winner of a game is the one who has made the next to last blunder."
- Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)
"It is always better to sacrifice your opponent's men." - Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956)
"Chess is 99 percent tactics." - Richard Teichmann (1868-1925)
"Chess is a game which reflects most honor on human wit." - Voltaire
"Bad moves come in waves." - Bill Wall (1951- )
"A chess player who resigns gracefully never intended to win anyway." - Bill Wall (1951- )
"Chess players never die. They just lose their mates." - Bill Wall (1951- )
"The hardest chess position to win is stalemate." - Bill Wall (1951- )
"Don't eat beans and bananas before a chess match." - Bill Wall (1951- )
"There is no remorse like a remorse of chess. It is a curse upon man. There
is no happiness in chess." - H.G. Wells (1886-1946)
"Chess is like marriage. You cannot have a mate without a check."
- Brian Wood