Chess Art Quotes & Sayings

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect for others, and eventually thought neither of us knew it at the time, chess games ... Come from the South, blow from the wind
poom!
North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen. — Amy Tan

Well, of
course one must have concentration. Courage. Self-control. That goes
without saying. But more important than these, one must have ... I
don't know how to say it. One must be both a mathematician and a
poet. As though poetry were a science; or mathematics an art. One
must have an affection for proportion to play Go at all well.Ah ... what Go is to philosophers
and warriors, chess is to accountants and merchants. — Trevanian

[Photographer Julian Wasser] had this great idea that I should play chess naked with Marcel Duchamp and it seem to be such a great idea that it was just like the best idea I'd ever heard in my life. It was like a great idea. I mean, it was - Not only was it vengeance, it was art, and it was, like, a great idea. And even if it didn't get any vengeance, it would still turn out okay with me because, you know, I would be sort of immortalized. — Eve Babitz

What is chess, do you think? Those who play for fun or not at all dismiss it as a game. The ones who devote their lives to it for the most part insist that it's a science. It's neither. Bobby Fischer got underneath it like no one before and found at its center, art. — Ben Kingsley

I want to serve chess through games, books that are works of art. I would like to bring the game closer to many people all over the world. — Garry Kasparov

I'm not sure I would call it agony but there is a kind of cyclic frustration. You get one story right and then here comes another one. When does that end? What I'm trying to do is get it to end right now, by recognizing that that cycle is writing. That is: trying to understand the frustrations and setbacks (and agony) as part of a bigger chess game you are playing with art itself. — George Saunders

Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity — Vladimir Nabokov

Chess is all about getting the king into check, you see. It's about killing the father. I would say that chess has more to do with the art of murder than it does with the art of war. — Arturo Perez-Reverte

Chess is one thing, but if we get to the point computers can best humans in the arts-those splendid, millennia-old expressions of the heart and soul of human existence-then why bother existing? to produce human art a computer would have to find, feel, absorb reality to the point it is overcome, to the point it sobs for release. A computer perhaps could replicate every possibility but could never transfer the energy art requires to exist in the first place. — Jonny Lee Miller

For me art and chess are closely related, both are forms in which the self finds beauty and expression. — Vladimir Kramnik

A game of chess holds many secrets. Fortunately! That is why we cannot clearly state whether chess is science, art, or a sport. — Garry Kasparov

We often hear the terms 'positional' and 'tactical' used as opposites. But this is as wrong as to consider a painting's composition unrelated to its subject. Just as there is no such thing as 'artistic' art, so there is no such thing as 'positional' chess. — Samuel Reshevsky

You know, also I, you know, I was on those birth control pills and my breasts were like, they hurt ... and, you know, it was like they blew up like. You know, they wouldn't fit into any of my dresses. I had to quit taking those birth control pills ... This was like - I mean they were like, I thought they should be photographed really ... So they were, for immortality. (On being photographed nude playing chess with Marcel Duchamp at Duchamp's 1963 retrospective at the Pasadena Museum of Art.) — Eve Babitz

In chess the most unbelievable thing for me is that it's a game for everybody: rich, poor, girl, boy, old, young. It's a fantastic game which can unite people and generations! It's a language which you'll find people "speak" in every country. If you reach a certain level you find a very rich world! Art, sport, logic, psychology, a battlefield, imagination, creativity not only in practical games but don't forget either how amazing a feeling it is to compose a study, for example (unfortunately that's not appreciated these days but it's a fantastic part of chess!). — Judit Polgar

Prose is an art form, movies and acting in general are art forms, so is music, painting, graphics, sculpture, and so on. Some might even consider classic games like chess to be an art form. Video games use elements of all of these to create something new. Why wouldn't video games be an art form? — Sam Lake

When I am trying to understand the method of winning in the endgame with two bishops against the knight, chess is a science, when I admire a beautiful combination or study, then chess is art, and when I am complicating position in the approaching time trouble of my opponent, then chess is sport. — Ashot Nadanian

Chess is too difficult to be a game and not serious enough to be a science or an art. — Napoleon Bonaparte

What is an obsession? It is a form of programming that has gotten completely out of hand. Religious fanatics are a prime example, as are those people who become enveloped in a political concept. Most of man's progress has come about as a result of obsessions. The Wright brothers were not just tinkerers with an idea; their idea swallowed them up. Most leaders are obsessed with power or possessed by egos so large their only concern is their place in history. I have known writers obsessed with a single subject. Like Bobby Fischer and chess, anything and everything outside their subject seems meaningless. Any art form - music, painting, dance - is done best by those who are completely possessed by it. Such possession often borders on madness. This world would be a sorry place without such madmen. — John A. Keel

When you sit down to play a game you should think only about the position, but not about the opponent. Whether chess is regarded as a science, or an art, or a sport, all the same psychology bears no relation to it and only stands in the way of real chess. — Jose Raul Capablanca

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. — Emanuel Lasker

Nature supplies the game of chess with its implements; science with its system; art with its aesthetic arrangement of its problems; and God endows it with its blessed power of making people happy. — Peter Weiss

For success I consider three factors are necessary: firstly, an awareness of my own strengths and weaknesses; secondly, an accurate understanding of my opponent's strengths and weaknesses; thirdly, a higher aim than momentary satisfaction. I see this aim as being scientific and artistic achievements, which place the game of chess on a par with other arts. — Alexander Alekhine

Chess for me is not a game, but an art. Yes, and I take upon myself all those responsibilities which an art imposes on its adherents. — Alexander Alekhine

Chess is the art which expresses the science of logic. — Mikhail Botvinnik

Chess is everything: art, science, and sport. — Anatoly Karpov

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

You cannot say, 'Go! Go! Rah! Rah! Good move!' People want some emotion. Chess is an art and not a spectator sport. — Garry Kasparov

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. (On giving up art to play chess) — Marcel Duchamp

No fantasy, however rich, no technique, however masterly, no penetration into the psychology of the opponent, however deep, can make a chess game a work of art, if these qualities do not lead to the main goal - the search for truth. — Vasily Smyslov

One day after the exams, the teachers sat at their desks correcting papers while the pupils read comics, played chess or cards or talked quietly in groups. Coulter at a desk in front of Thaw turned round and said, "What are ye reading?"
Thaw showed a book of critical essays on art and literature.
Coulter said accusingly, "You don't read that for fun."
"Yes, I read it for fun."
"People our age don't read that sort of book for fun. They read it to show they're superior."
"But I read this sort of book even when there's nobody around to see me."
"That shows you arenae trying to make us think you're superior, you're trying to make yourself think you're superior. — Alasdair Gray

He can be regarded as the great master of simplification. The art of resolving the tension at the critical moment and in the most effacious way so as to clarify the position as desired is Capablanca's own. — Max Euwe

It has always been recognized that chess is an art, and its best practitioners have been described as artists. — Alexander Kotov

I consider chess an art, and accept all those responsibilities which art places upon its devotees. — Alexander Alekhine

Chess is the art of analysis. — Mikhail Botvinnik

And perhaps it was precisely because she knew nothing at all about chess that chess for her was not simply a parlor game or a pleasant pastime, but a mysterious art equal to all the recognized arts. She had never been in close contact with such people - there was no one to compare him with except those inspired eccentrics, musicians and poets whose image one knows as clearly and as vaguely as that of a Roman Emperor, an inquisitor or a comedy miser. Her memory contained a modest dimly lit gallery with a sequence of all the people who had in any way caught her fancy. — Vladimir Nabokov

The art of chess is akin to the art of war itself; full of strategy and cunning, yet clever placements. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Chess is more than a game or a mental training. It is a distinct attainment. I have always regarded the playing of chess and the accomplishment of a good game as an art, and something to be admired no less than an artist's canvas or the product of a sculptor's chisel. Chess is a mental diversion rather than a game. It is both artistic and scientific. — Jose Raul Capablanca

Chess is one of the few arts where composition takes place simultaneously with performance — Garry Kasparov

My study of chess was accompanied by a strong attraction to music, and it was probably thanks to this that from childhood I became accustomed to thinking of chess as an art, for all the science and sport involved in it. — Vasily Smyslov

Anatoli Tarasov, the guy that created the Soviet style of play, was a visionary. He was a creative thinker. He studied ballet and chess and art and read a lot. — Gabe Polsky

With this mistake I deprived myself of the possibility to make a contribution to the treasury of chess art. — Garry Kasparov

Botvinnik's right! When he says such things, then he's right. Usually, I prefer not to study chess but to play it. For me chess is more an art than a science. It's been said that Alekhine and I played similar chess, except that he studied more. Yes, perhaps, but I have to say that he played, too. — Mikhail Tal

I have frequently stated that I regard chess as an art form, where creativity prevails over other factors. — Vasily Smyslov

Chess is a unique cognitive nexus, a place where art and science come together in the human mind and are then refined and improved by experience. — Garry Kasparov

But is it not already an insult to call chess anything so narrow as a game? Is it not also a science, an art, hovering between these categories like Muhammad's coffin between heaven and earth, a unique yoking of opposites, ancient and yet eternally new, mechanically constituted and yet an activity of the imagination alone, limited to a fixed geometric area but unlimited in its permutations, constantly evolving and yet sterile, a cogitation producing nothing, a mathematics calculating nothing, an art without an artwork, an architecture without substance and yet demonstrably more durable in its essence and actual form than all books and works, the only game that belongs to all peoples and all eras, while no one knows what god put it on earth to deaden boredom, sharpen the mind, and fortify the spirit? — Stefan Zweig

The art of chess is in knowing which is the most valuable piece in play, then having the courage to sacrifice it for the win. — Thomm Quackenbush

The highest Art of the Chess player lies in not allowing your Opponent to show you what he can do. — Garry Kasparov

For me, chess is at the same time a game, a sport, a science and an art. And perhaps even more than that,. There is someting hard to explain to those who do not know the game well. One must first learn to play it correctly in order to savor its richness. — Bent Larsen

Use art, be creative. No more war. No more children dying. A pawn that does not move in chess upsets the game. I know there is love in the world still and that is what i wish to surround myself with. Sacrifice your time and energy into something positive instead of the negative and you will see that change around you. — Lorin Morgan-Richards

In the Soviets' view, chess was not merely an art or a science or even a sport; it was what it had been invented to simulate: war. — Pal Benko

Pretenders try to out-think their opponents as if they were playing chess. Tennis is a martial art. Instinctive fluid action is far more effective than thinking. — Anonymous

A sport, a struggle for results and a fight for prizes. I think that the discussion about "chess is science or chess is art" is already inappropriate. The purpose of modern chess is to reach a result. — Alexander Morozevich

Chess, like other arts, must be practiced to be appreciated. — Alexander Alekhine