We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.
William HazlittRead
Many have become chess masters - no one has become the master of chess.
Interpretation
While many people can excel in chess, true mastery of the game remains elusive and complex.
Siegbert Tarrasch's quote highlights the distinction between achievement and ultimate understanding. Becoming a chess master implies reaching a high level of skill and success in the game; however, it indicates that mastery is an ongoing journey rather than a final destination. It suggests that the complexities of chess are such that even the best players do not fully conquer its depths, encouraging a mindset of continuous learning and growth.
In practice
During a chess tournament, one could mention this quote to reflect on the nature of skill.
We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.
In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices.
Each human being is bred with a unique set of potentials that yearn to be fulfilled as surely as the acorn yearns to become the oak within it.
We come into the world alone and we die alone. Why, in life, should we be any less alone?
From joy people are born; for joy they live; in joy they melt at death. Death is an ecstasy, for it removes the burden of the body and frees the soul of all pain springing from body identification. It is the cessation of pain and sorrow.
I think there is no way to write about being alone. To write is to tell something to somebody to communicate to others. . . . Solitude is noncommunication, the absence of others, the presence of a self sufficient to itself.
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