Wilhelm Steinitz Quotes

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.

Wilhelm Steinitz

• Game
• Slavery
• Reflection

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.

Wilhelm Steinitz

• Player
• Position
• Losing

I have never in my life played the French Defence, which is the dullest of all openings

Wilhelm Steinitz

• Played
• French
• Dullest

Unfortunately, many regard the critic as an enemy, instead of seeing him as a guide to the truth.

Wilhelm Steinitz

• Truth
• Enemy
• Guide

A win by an unsound combination, however showy, fills me with artistic horror

Wilhelm Steinitz

• Horror
• Artistic
• Combination

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.

Wilhelm Steinitz

• Player
• Years
• Matter

Chess is intellectual gymnastics.

Wilhelm Steinitz

• Chess
• Intellectual
• Gymnastics

The King is a fighting piece. Use it!

Wilhelm Steinitz

• Fighting
• King
• Piece

I may be an old lion, but I can still bite someone's hand off if he puts it in my mouth.

Wilhelm Steinitz

• Lion
• Mouth
• Bite

Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack

Wilhelm Steinitz

• Player
• Attack
• Initiative