'If you wait for luck to turn up, life becomes very boring.'

Mikhail Tal

'There's so many lessons I get from chess, it's incredible, but I think the biggest thing for me has always been is that losing is learning.'

Maurice Ashley

'Without the element of enjoyment, it is not worth trying to excel at anything.'

Magnus Carlsen

'If you don’t win, it’s not a great tragedy – the worst that happens is that you lose a game.'

Bobby Fischer

'Chess is a fairy tale of 1,001 blunders.'

Savielly Tartakower

'When you see a good move, look for a better one.'

Emanuel Lasker

'There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones and mine.'

Mikhail Tal

'Excelling at chess has long been considered a symbol of more general intelligence. That is an incorrect assumption in my view, as pleasant as it might be.'

Garry Kasparov

'I am more strongly confirmed than ever in the belief that the time devoted to chess is literally frittered away.'

Paul Morphy

'I get more upset at losing at other things than chess. I always get upset when I lose at Monopoly.'

Magnus Carlsen

'Well, I think, in large part, when I first began playing chess at seven years old, I was quite bad at it. I lost a lot of games when I first started.'

Hikaru Nakamura

'Win with grace, lose with dignity!'

Susan Polgar