Emanuel Lasker Quotes

When you see a good move, look for a better one.

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.

Without error there can be no brilliancy

Of my fifty-seven years I have applied at least thirty to forgetting most of what I have learned or read. Since then, I have acquired a certain ease and cheer which I should never again like to be without. (...) I have stored little in my memory, but I can apply that little, and it is of use in many and varied emergencies. I keep it in order, but resist every attempt to increase its dead weight.

Education in Chess has to be an education in independent thinking and judging. Chess must not be memorized.

He who wants to educate himself in Chess must evade what is dead in Chess... the habit of playing with inferior opponents; the custom of avoiding difficult tasks; the weakness of uncritically taking over variations or rules discovered by others; the vanity which is self-sufficient; the incapacity for admitting mistakes; in brief, everything that leas to standstill or to anarchy.

I keep on fighting as long as my opponent can make a mistake.

The hardest game to win is a won game

By positional play a master tries to prove and exploit true values, whereas by combinations he seeks to refute false values ... A combination produces an unexpected re-assessment of values.

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.

I have known many chess players, but among them there has been only one genius - Capablanca!

The most intelligent inspection of any number of fine paintings will not make the observer a painter, nor will listening to a number of operas make the hearer a musician, but good judges of music and painting may so be formed. Chess differs from these. The intelligent perusal of fine games cannot fail to make the reader a better player and a better judge of the play of others.

He who has a slight disadvantage plays more attentively, inventively and more boldly than his antagonist who either takes it easy or aspires after too much. Thus a slight disadvantage is very frequently seen to convert into a good, solid advantage.

You should keep in mind no names, nor numbers, nor isolated incidents, not even results, but only methods..The method produces numerous results; a few of these will remain in our memory, and as long as they remain few, they are useful to illustrate and to keep alive the rules which order a thousand results.

Chess is, above all, a fight.

Having spent 200 hours on the above, the young player, even if he possesses no special talent for chess, is likely to be among those two or three thousand chessplayers [who play on a par with a master]. There are, however, a quarter of a million chessplayers who annually spend no fewer than 200 hours on chess without making any progress. Without going into any further calculations, I can assert with a high degree of certainty that nowadays we achieve only a fraction of what we are capable of achieving.

An advantage could consist not only in a single important advantage but also in a multitude of insignificant advantages.

By some ardent enthusiasts Chess has been elevated into a science or an art. It is neither; but its principal characteristic seems to be - what human nature mostly delights in - a fight.

Chess is neither a science nor an art. It is what human nature most delights in--a fight.

Loss generally occurs when a player overrates his advantage or for other reasons seeks to derive from a minute advantage a great return such as a forced win.

To refer to the oft mooted question, "Which piece is stronger, the Bishop or the Knight?" it is clear that the value of the Bishop undergoes greater changes than that of the Knight.

In Chess, as it is played by masters, chance is practically eliminated.

The laws of chess do not permit a free choice: you have to move whether you like it or not.

The attack is that process by means of which you remove obstructions.

A chess game, after all, is a fight in which all possible factors must be made use of, and in which a knowledge of the opponent's good and bad qualities is of the greatest importance.