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.
Mikhail TalRead
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
IntuitionCreativityExpressionChessStrategy
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.
Mikhail TalRead
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.
Mikhail TalRead
For pleasure you can read the games collections of Andersson and Chigorin, but for benefit you should study Tarrasch, Keres and Bronstein.
Mikhail TalRead
To play for a draw (at any rate with White) is to some degree a crime against chess.
Mikhail TalRead
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.
Mikhail TalRead
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Music lives and breathes to tell us who we are and what we face. It is a path between ourselves and the infinite.
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But I always need to identify with a character to write about him or her - and by 'identify,' I mean see the world through that person's eyes and have a strong sense of the inner logic of their acts and decisions, wacky or wrongheaded though they might be. In that sense, I think there's some of me in all of them.
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We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.
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It was thought, perception, sensations that interested her, the conscious mind as a river through time, and how to represent its onward roll, as well as all the tributaries that would swell it, and the obstacles that would divert it. If only she could reproduce the clear light of a summer's morning.
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Art happens-no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.
James WhistlerRead