WILHELM STEINITZ

Chess is not for timid souls.

When you have an advantage, you are obliged to attack; otherwise you are endangered to lose the advantage.

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

Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack.

Fame, I have already. Now I need the money.

Chess is so inspiring that I do not believe a good player is capable of having an evil thought during the game.

A sacrifice is best refuted by accepting it.

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

Chess is intellectual gymnastics.

In the ending the king is a powerful piece for assisting his own pawns, or stopping the adverse pawns.

Capture of the adverse King is the ultimate but not the first object of the game

I would rather die in America than live in England. I would rather lose a match in America than win one in England. I have come to the conclusion that I neither mean to die soon or to lose the match!

I shall accord to myself the honor of inscribing myself as an applicant for the American citizenship which according to law I can obtain only after five years residence in this country. And I shall yield to no one of my future countrymen in patriotism. I consider America now my real home.