288 Quotes by Garry Kasparov

To play chess on a truly high level requires a constant stream of exact, informed decisions, made in real time and under pressure from your opponent. What's more, it requires a synthesis of some very different virtues, all of which are necessary to good decisions: calculatioñ, creativity and a desire for results. If you ask a Grandmaster, an artist and a computer scientist what makes a good chess player, you'll get a glimpse of these different strengths in action.

I'm looking forward to the day when my country is saved - and the current winner becomes a loser.

Chess is mental torture.

There are fixed rules in chess, and no one knows how the game will end.

I wouldn't place much stock in numbers. I don't believe that they reflect Putin's true popularity. Just think about how the pollsters proceed. They call people and they ask them questions on the street. In today's Russia, it takes a lot of courage to tell a stranger something critical about the head of the Kremlin. And yet more than 20 percent do so nonetheless.

I certainly want to be involved in politics and help shape the transition. I am in contact with regime critics who had to leave for the West. One of them is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former businessman, who had to endure 10 years in a prison camp.

The biggest problem I see among people who want to excel in chess – and in business and in life in general – is not trusting their instincts enough.

Dictatorships sometimes fall unexpectedly and quickly. And [Vladimir] Putin knows that for him, the loss of power doesn't mean a comfortable retirement, but something completely different.

The highest Art of the Chess player lies in not allowing your Opponent to show you what he can do.