Emanuel Lasker Quotes

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

Without error there can be no brilliancy

The game gives us a satisfaction that Life denies us. And for the Chess player, the success which crowns his work, the great dispeller of sorrows, is named 'combination'.

Do not permit yourself to fall in love with the end-game play to the exclusion of entire games. It is well to have the whole story of how it happened; the complete play, not the denouement only. Do not embrace the rag-time and vaudeville of chess.

Love great first lines and paragraphs. From The Yiddish Policemen's Union: Nine months Landsman's been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered. Now somebody has put a bullet in the brain of the occupant of 208, a yid who was calling himself Emanuel Lasker.

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

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 a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite.

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

Truth derives its strength not so much from itself as from the brilliant contrast it makes with what is only apparently true. This applies especially to Chess, where it is often found that the profoundest moves do not much startle the imagination.

Against anyone of any ability, to win you needed to pursue many lines of thought rather than just one, to light small tactical fires all over the board (a skill I had noticed Emanuel Lasker had in abundance). But by playing with more imagination, you might also have to open yourself to the possibility of defeat. Greater complexity could mean greater danger: anyone unwilling to accept that risk was destined to chess mediocrity.

You should keep in mind no names, nor numbers, nor isolated incidents, not even results, but only methods. The method produces numerous results