Emanuel Lasker (1868 – 1941)
German-born chess grandmaster, mathematician and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years.
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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.
Our efforts in chess attain only a hundredth of one percent of their rightful result...Our education, in all domains of endeavour, is frightfully wasteful of time and values.
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.
Education in Chess has to be an education in independent thinking and judging. Chess must not be memorized...
On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of lies; the merciless fact, culmination in checkmate, contradicts the hypocrites.
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