The cherished dream of every chessplayer is to play a match with the World Champion. But here is the paradox: the closer you come to the realization of this goal, the less you think about it.
In my games I have sometimes found a combination intuitively simply feeling that it must be there. Yet I was not able to translate my thought processes into normal human language.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the challenge of expressing intuitive insights and creative processes in a way that others can understand.
Mikhail Tal, a renowned chess player, speaks to the unique experience of intuition in creative thinking, particularly in games like chess. He conveys the struggle many artists and thinkers face when attempting to articulate their instinctive thoughts and strategies, emphasizing that some insights are felt rather than easily expressed in conventional language. This speaks to the enigmatic nature of creativity, where what is internally understood may be difficult to convey externally.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about artistic processes, this quote could illustrate the internal struggle of creative professionals.
More from Mikhail Tal
All quotes →Of course, errors are not good for a chess game, but errors are unavoidable and in any case, a game without ant errors, or as they say 'flawless game' is colorless.
I will not hide the fact that I love to hear the spectators react after a sacrifice of a piece or pawn. I don't think that there is anything bad in such a feeling; no artist or musician is indifferent to the reactions of the public.
For pleasure you can read the games collections of Andersson and Chigorin, but for benefit you should study Tarrasch, Keres and Bronstein.
To play for a draw (at any rate with White) is to some degree a crime against chess.
Botvinnik's right! When he says such things, then he's right. Usually, I prefer not to study chess but to play it. For me chess is more an art than a science. It's been said that Alekhine and I played similar chess, except that he studied more. Yes, perhaps, but I have to say that he played, too.
Similar quotes
All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.
What a creature he was! Never have I felt such a horse between my knees. His great haunches gathered under him with every stride, and he shot forward ever faster and faster, stretched like a greyhound, while the windbeat in my face and whistled past my ears.
I see no intrinsic reason why a doubly talented artist might not arise and create a comic-strip novel masterpiece.
I can't work without a model. I won't say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true.
They swayed about upon a rocking horse, And thought it Pegasus.
Writers are only rarely likable.