Silence can be violent sort of like a slit wrist.

I do not think there is any other mental strain comparable to the exertion to which a tournament game subjects the chess master. Working at what seemed to me the most difficult mathematical problems has never exhausted me nearly as much as playing in a chess tournament; and of all intellectual applications mathematical work is surely the hardest. That is why physical fitness is a most important factor in tournament chess and why young players, whose brains can stand the poisons of fatigue much longer than those of older players have a great advantage.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

In my view it’s the brain that makes the patterns on the basis of experience, so all the grandmaster does is expose himself to chess information and lets the brain rack it up in its own mysterious way.