Chris Weld

“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.”
― Josh Waitzkin

“Scepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as knowledge is of scepticism. To be content with what we at present know, is, for the most part, to shut our ears against conviction; since, from the very gradual character of our education, we must continually forget, and emancipate ourselves from, knowledge previously acquired; we must set aside old notions and embrace fresh ones; and, as we learn, we must be daily unlearning something which it has cost us no small labour and anxiety to acquire.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Everyone at a high level has a huge amount of chess understanding, and much of what separates the great from the very good is deep presence, relaxation of the conscious mind, which allows the unconscious to flow unhindered.”
― Josh Waitzkin, The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance

“What the United States call democracy is actually a vertical model of remote governance by oligarchs—economic barons and their political representatives. The result is that citizens in the United States have little control over what the U.S. government does.”
― S. Brian Willson