Max Euwe Quotes

#1. I kind of grew up my whole life as an underdog. I had two older brothers who would beat on me and then let me know I wasn't much compared to them. And it's still like that. Guys like that keep you humble, being around them every day and realizing I'm still the little brother to them.

A. J. Hawk

#2. Whoever sees no other aim in the game than that of giving checkmate to one's opponent will never become a good Chess player.

Max Euwe

#3. Poor Capablanca! Thou wert a brilliant technician, but no philosopher. Thou wert not capable of believing that in chess, another style could be victorious than the absolutely correct one.

Max Euwe

#4. Capablanca did not apply himself to opening theory (in which he never therefore achieved much), but delved deeply into the study of end-games and other simple positions which respond to technique rather than to imagination.

Max Euwe

#5. I honestly feel very humble when I study Capablanca's games.

Max Euwe

#6. The essence of Capablanca's greatness is his rare talent for avoiding all that can complicate or confuse the conflict.

Max Euwe

#7. Chess is a sport. The main object in the game of chess remains the achievement of victory.

Max Euwe

#8. Capablanca plays very superficially sometimes, in a way that can only be ascribed to lack of concentration. This is an integral weakness of his make-up and can only be partially compensated by his employing his time allowance to the full.

Max Euwe

#9. He can be regarded as the great master of simplification. The art of resolving the tension at the critical moment and in the most effacious way so as to clarify the position as desired is Capablanca's own.

Max Euwe

#10. People just want good stories.

Brian K. Vaughan

#11. The 'chess machine', by which admiring title he had been known, revealed the great drawback of a machine: it had not sufficient flexibility to adapt itself to altered circumstances.

Max Euwe

#12. He looked around, saw himself mirrored in that man walking back with his rifle. And suddenly, it seemed possible to him that we might love ourselves the most when we are suffering and seen to suffer. The pursuits of men seemed only the more shocking, if this were true.

Karen Fisher

#13. Alekhine is a poet who creates a work of art out of something that would hardly inspire another man to send home a picture post card

Max Euwe

#14. We pledge to you in our name ... that we will resist the invaders.

Saddam Hussein

#15. Alekhine's real genius is in the preparation and construction of a position, long before combinations or mating attacks come into consideration at all.

Max Euwe

#16. The general problem with ambitious systems is complexity. [ ... ] it is important to emphasize the value of simplicity and elegance, for complexity has a way of compounding difficulties.

Fernando J. Corbato