36 Quotes by Wilhelm Steinitz

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!

Chess is not for timid souls.

The task of the positional player is systematically to accumulate slight advantages and try to convert temporary advantages into permanent ones, otherwise the player with the better position runs the risk of losing it.

I may be an old lion, but I can still bite someone's hand off if he puts it in my mouth.

Chess is not for the faint-hearted; it absorbs a person entirely. To get to the bottom of this game, he has to give himself up into slavery. Chess is difficult, it demands work, serious reflection and zealous research.

The King is a fighting piece. Use it!

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

Unfortunately, many regard the critic as an enemy, instead of seeing him as a guide to the truth.

No great player blundered oftener than I done. I was champion of the world for twenty-eight years because I was twenty years ahead of my time. I played on certain principles, which neither Zukertort nor anyone else of his time understood. The players of today, such as Lasker, Tarrasch, Pillsbury, Schlechter and others have adopted my principles, and as is only natural, they have improved upon what I began, and that is the whole secret of the matter.