40 Quotes by Josh Waitzkin

So if you think that when you are better, it means that you can smash ahead and mate the guy, you are wrong, that is not what better means. What better means is that your position has the potential, if played correctly, to turn out well. So do not think that when you are better and when you are attacking that you can just force mate. That is not what it is about. Often the way to play best, the way to play within the position, is to maintain it.

He landed on cheap shot, but I knocked him out of the tournament.

The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.

There will be nothing learned from any challenge in which we don't try our hardest.

Great ones are willing to get burned time and again as they sharpen their swords in the fire.

My instinct is always to seek out challenges as opposed to avoiding them.

The weakness of an art is its dogma. And when I’m competing against an individual from a different discipline, I try to find the dogma of that discipline. When I’m competing with someone within a discipline, I try to find their personal dogma. 

In chess you might find a good move. Then you might find a better move. But take your time. Find the best move.

The secret is that everything is always on the line. The more present we are at practice, the more present we will be in competition, in the boardroom, at the exam, the operating table, the big stage. If we have any hope of attaining excellence, let alone of showing what we’ve got under pressure, we have to be prepared by a lifestyle of reinforcement. Presence must be like breathing.