Aron Nimzowitsch famous quotes

03-24-2025

The passed Pawn is a criminal, who should be kept under lock and key. Mild measures, such as police surveillance, are not sufficient
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Keys #Police #Criminals
It is a well known phenomenon that the same amateur who can conduct the middle game quite creditably, is usually perfectly helpless in the end game. One of the principal requisites of good chess is the ability to treat both the middle and end game equally well.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Games #Chess #Well Known
Even the laziest King flees wildly in the face of a double check!
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Kings #Chess #Faces
In the middlegame, the king is merely an extra, but in the endgame, he is one of the star actors.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Stars #Kings #Actors
The isolated Pawn casts gloom over the entire chessboard
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Chess #Pawns #Casts
How vain are our fears! I thought to myself. Sometimes we fear that which our opponent (or fate) had never even considered! After this, then, is it any longer worthwhile to rack one's brain to find new ghosts to fear? No, indeed: All hail optimism! - upon playing Hermanis Mattison after he overlooked an unusual knight manouevre.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Fate #Knights #Optimism
Many men, many styles; what is chess style but the intangible expression of the will to win.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Winning #Men #Expression
No pawn exchanges, no file-opening, no attack.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Chess #Pawns #Opening
A thorough knowledge of the elements takes us more than half the road to mastership
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Elements #Half #Thorough
The threat is stronger than the execution.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Stronger #Execution #Threat
Do not always be thinking of attack! Moves that safeguard your position are often far more prudent.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Moving #Thinking #Prudent
Chess strategy as such today is still in its diapers, despite Tarrasch's statement 'We live today in a beautiful time of progress in all fields'. Not even the slightest attempt has been made to explore and formulate the laws of chess strategy.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Beautiful #Law #Progress
The chess world is obligated to organize a match between the champion of the world and the winner of this Carlsbad tournament - indeed, this is a moral obligation. If the world of chess should remain deaf to its obligation, on the other hand, it would amount to an absolutely unforgivable omission, carrying with it a heavy burden of guilt.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Hands #Omission #Champion
Ridicule can do much, for instance embitter the existence of young talents.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Chess #Talent #Young
When I today ask myself whence I got the moral courage, for it takes moral courage to make a move (or form a plan) running counter to all tradition, I think I may say in answer, that it was only my intense preoccupation with the problem of the blockade which helped me to do so.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Running #Moving #Thinking
If in a battle, I seize a bit of debatable land with a handful of soldiers, without having done anything to prevent an enemy bombardment of the position, would it ever occur to me to speak of a conquest of the terrain in question? Obviously not. Then why should I do so in chess?
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Land #Soldier #Enemy
Strategically important points should be overprotected. If the pieces are so engaged, they get their regard in the fact that they will then find themselves well posted in every respect.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Important #Pieces #Chess
First restrain, next blockade, lastly destroy.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Chess #Next #Firsts
How can I lose to such an idiot?
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Witty #Humorous #Idiot
The defensive power of a pinned piece is only imaginary
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Pieces #Chess #Imaginary
Ridicule can do much, for instance embitter the existence of young talents; but one thing is not given to it, to put a stop permanently to the incursion of new and powerful ideas.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Powerful #Ideas #Talent
Giving up the center must not here be regarded as illogical. Was happiness no happiness because it endured for just a short time? One cannot always be happy.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Giving Up #Giving #Always Be Happy
How is it to be explained that something inside me revolts against the playing of obvious moves? Perhaps we may perceive the underlying reason in the fact that I derive satisfaction from seeking to reveal the concealed meaning of a position by means of maneuvering play and therefore I do not wish to see this satisfaction curtailed by a banal, more or less fortuitous decision. Naturally, this phenomenon is played out beneath the threshold of consciousness. The waking consciousness will, of course, in each individual case, give preference to the more rapid means of deciding the game.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Moving #Mean #Games
The great mobility of the King forms one of the chief characteristics of all endgame strategy. In the middlegame the King is a mere 'super', in the endgame on the other hand - on of the 'principals'. We must therefore develop him, bring him nearer to the fighting line.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Kings #Fighting #Hands
The main Objective of any operation in an open file is the eventual Occupation of the seventh or eighth Rank.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Occupation #Chess #Operations
The night of QB3 is under obligation, the moment the enemy gives him the chance, of undertaking an invasion of the center by Kn-Q5.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Night #Giving #Enemy
The beauty of a move lies not in it's appearance but in the thought behind it.
-- Aron Nimzowitsch

#Sports #Lying #Moving

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