Wilhelm Steinitz Quotes
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Chess is not for the faint-hearted; it absorbs a person entirely. To get to the bottom of this game, he has to give himself up into slavery. Chess is difficult, it demands work, serious reflection and zealous research.
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The task of the positional player is systematically to accumulate slight advantages and try to convert temporary advantages into permanent ones, otherwise the player with the better position runs the risk of losing it.
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I have never in my life played the French Defence, which is the dullest of all openings
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Unfortunately, many regard the critic as an enemy, instead of seeing him as a guide to the truth.
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No great player blundered oftener than I done. I was champion of the world for twenty-eight years because I was twenty years ahead of my time. I played on certain principles, which neither Zukertort nor anyone else of his time understood. The players of today, such as Lasker, Tarrasch, Pillsbury, Schlechter and others have adopted my principles, and as is only natural, they have improved upon what I began, and that is the whole secret of the matter.
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A win by an unsound combination, however showy, fills me with artistic horror
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Chess is intellectual gymnastics.
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I may be an old lion, but I can still bite someone's hand off if he puts it in my mouth.