"If you are not big enough to lose, you are not big enough to win." ― Walter Reuther

"What gives chess its great fascination is that the K, Q, R, B, N, and P move in different ways. In consequence we get a colorful diversity of possibilities unequaled in any other board game." ― Fred Reinfeld

"Every Pawn is a potential Queen." ― James Mason

"You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, and irrational fear of the unknown. There is no such thing as the unknown. Only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood." — Captain Kirk

"It is important that you don't let your opponent impose his style of play on you. A part of that begins mentally. At the chessboard if you start blinking every time he challenges you then in a certain sense you are withdrawing. That is very important to avoid." ― Viswanathan Anand

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." ― Napoleon Bonaparte

"A knowledge of tactics is the foundation of positional play. This is a rule which has stood its test in chess history and one which we cannot impress forcibly enough upon the young chess player. A beginner should avoid Queen's Gambit and French Defence and play open games instead! While he may not win as many games at first, he will in the long run be amply compensated by acquiring a thorough knowledge of the game." ― Richard Reti

"Methodical thinking is of more use in chess than inspiration." ― C.J.S. Purdy

"To win against me, you must beat me three times: in the opening, the middlegame and the endgame." ― Alexander Alekhine

"He lived in and for chess like no one before him, nor any since until Fischer." ― Taylor Kingston (on Alekhine)

"I think an important lesson from the game is that once you have made a move, you cannot take it back. You really have to measure your decisions. You think a lot. You evaluate your choices very carefully. There's never any guarantee about what's going to follow once you have made a decision." ― Viswanathan Anand

"Analyze! Analyze! Analyze! That was the doctor's motto, and his deeply ingrained habit of investigating every line was obviously unsuitable in rapid transit." ― Arthur Dake (on Alekhine's relative weakness in rapid play)

"I learned a lot about how the world champion analyzed chess positions. Alekhine taught me to sit on my hands and not to play the first move that came to mind, no matter how good it looked. He examined everything, whipping through an astonishing number of variations." ― Arnold Denker

Gerald Abrahams' dictum: "Good positions don't win games; good moves do".

"It is quite an advantage to have the initiative, and once you have it you must keep it. If your opponent has it, and relinquishes it through some accident or other, you must take it." ― Jose R. Capablanca

"No man has ever listened himself out of a job." ― Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States

"One man cannot summon the future. But one man can change the present!" — Spock

"To all mankind — may we never find space so vast, planets so cold, heart and mind so empty that we cannot fill them with love and warmth." — Garth

* Accidents: Game Collection: Accidents in the opening

* Attack: Game Collection: 2012-2015 Attacking Games (Naiditsch/Balogh)

* Brilliancies: Game Collection: Modern Chess Brilliancies (Evans)

* Cheating: https://www.chess.com/article/view/...

* Draws: Game Collection: 2012-2015 Interesting Draws (Naiditsch/Balogh)

* Endgames: Game Collection: 2012-2015 Endgames (Naiditsch/Balogh)

* Fight! Game Collection: 2012-2015 Fighting Games (Naiditsch/Balogh)

* Kasparov's Qkst: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/che...

* Masterful: Game Collection: FRENCH DEFENSE MASTERPIECES

* Positional: Game Collection: 2012-2015 Positional Games (Naiditsch/Balogh)

* POTD: Game Collection: POTD French 2

* Miscellaneous: Game Collection: ! Miscellaneous games

Light Switches Riddle: There Are 3 Light Bulbs In Three Separate Rooms... Riddle: There are 3 light bulbs in three separate rooms. in front of you, there is a panel with 3 separate switches. They only turn on or off. You may look inside each room only once. How can you tell which bulb belongs to which switch? Riddle Answer below.

This game an Indian Brahmin did invent,
The force of Eastern wisdom to express;
From thence the same to busy Europe sent;
The modern Lombards stil'd it pensive Chess.
— Sir John Denham

Riddle Answer: You turn on any two switches, leave them for a few minutes, and turn one switch off. You enter each room only once. you know that the lightbulb that is lit belongs to the switch that was left on, the bulb that is off, but hot, belongs to the switch you turned off, and the cold bulb belongs to the switch you never touched.

<Shakespearean Puns
Perhaps no writer is better known for the use of puns than William Shakespeare. He plays with "tide" and "tied" in Two Gentlemen of Verona:

"Panthino
Away, ass! You'll lose the tide if you tarry any longer.

Launce
It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the unkindest tied that ever any man tied.

Panthino
What's the unkindest tide?

Launce
Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog."

In the opening of Richard III, the sun refers to the blazing sun on Edward IV's banner and the fact that he is the son of the Duke of York:

"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York."

In this line from Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare plays on the different meanings of heavy (which also means sad) and light:

"Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling; Being but heavy I will bear the light."

Later in Romeo and Juliet, a morbid pun comes from a fatally-stabbed Mercutio, where grave means serious, but also alludes to his imminent death:

"Ask for me tomorrow, you shall find me a grave man."

If you open any Shakesperean play, you're likely to find at least one pun on the page! Keep an eye out for a clever play on words example the next time you read Hamlet or watch As You Like It on the stage.>

THE HOOSIER'S NEST
by John Finley, Mayor of Richmond, Indiana from 1852 - 1866

Untaught the language of the schools,
Nor versed in scientific rules,
The humble bard may not presume
The literati to illume;
Or classic cadences indite,
Attuned "to tickle ears polite;"
Contented if his strains may pass
the ordeal of the common mass,
And raise an anti-critic smile,
The brow of labor to beguile.

But ever as his mind delights
To follow fancy's airy flights,
Some object of terrestrial mien
Uncourteously obtrudes between,
And rudely scatters to the winds
The tangled threads of thought he spins.
Yet why invoke imagination
To picture out a new creation,
When nature, with a lavish hand,
Has formed a more than fairy land
For us - an El Dorado real,
Surpassing even the idea?
Then who can view the glorious West,
With all her hopes for coming time,
And hoard his feelings unexpressed
In poetry or prose, or rhyme?
What mind and matter, unrevealed;
Shall unborn ages her disclose!
What latent treasures, long concealed,
Be disinterred from dark repose!
Here Science shall impel her car*
O'er blended valley, hill, and plain;
While Liberty's bright natal star
Shines twinkling on her own domain.
Yes, land of the West! thou art happy and free! And thus evermore may thy hardy sons be,
Whist thy ocean-like prairies are spread far and wide, Or a tree of thy forests shall tower in pride.
Blest Indiana! in thy soil
Are found the sure rewards of toil,
Where honest poverty and worth
May make a Paradise on earth.
With feelings proud we contemplate
The rising glory of our State;
Nor take offense by application
Of its good-natured appellation.
Our hardy yeomanry can smile
At tourists of "the sear-girt isle,"
Or wits who traveled at the gallop,
Like Basil Hall or Mrs. Trollope.
'T is true among the crowds that roam
To seek for fortune or a home,
It happens that we often find
Empiricism of a kind.
A strutting fop, who boasts of knowledge,
Acquired at some far eastern college,
Expects to take us by surprise,
And dazzle our astonished eyes.
He boasts of learning, skill, and talents
Which, in the scale, would Andes balance;
Cuts widening swaths from day to day,
And in a month he runs away.
Not thus the honest son of toil,
Who settles here to till the soil,
and with intentions just and good,
Acquires an ample livelihood:
He is (and not the little-great)
The bone and sinew of the State.
With six-horse team to one-horse cart,
We hail here from every part;
And some you'll see, sans shoes or socks on,
With snake-pole and a yoke of oxen;
Others with pack-horse, dog, and rifle,
Make emigration quite a trifle.
The emigrant is soon located-
In Hoosier life initiated:
Erects a cabin in the woods,
Wherein he stows his household goods.
At first, round logs and clapboard roof,
With puncheon floor, quite carpet proof,
And paper windows, oiled and neat,
His edifice is then complete.
When four clay balls, in form of plummet,
Adorn his wooden chimney's summit.
Ensconced in this, let those who can
Find out a truly happier man.
The little youngsters rise around him,
So numerous they quite astound him;
Each with an ax or wheel in hand,
And instinct to subdue the land.
Erelong the cabin disappears,
A spacious mansion next he rears;
His fields seem widening by stealth,
An index of increasing wealth;
and when the hives of Hoosiers swarm,
To each is given a noble farm.
These are the seedlings of the State,
The stamina to make the great.
'T is true, her population, various,
Find avocations multifarious;
But having said so much, 't would seem
No derogation to my theme,
Were I to circumscribe the space,
To picture but a single case:
And if my muse be not seraphic,
I trust you'll find her somewhat graphic.

I'm told, in riding somewhere West,
A stranger found a Hoosier's Nest -
In other words, a buckeye cabin,
Just big enough to hold Queen Mab in;
Its situation, low but airy,
Was on the borders of a prairie;
And fearing he might be benighted,
He hailed the house, and then alighted.
The Hoosier met him at the door -
Their salutations soon were o'er.
He took the stranger's horse aside,
And to a sturdy sapling tied;
Then having stripped the saddle off,
He fed him in a sugar-trough.
The stranger stooped to enter in -
The entranced closing with a pin -
And manifested strong desire
To seat him by the log-heap fire,
Where half-a-dozen Hoosieroons,
With mush-and-milk, tin-cups, and spoons,
White heads, bare feet, and dirty faces,
Seemed much inclined to keep their places.
But Madam, anxious to display
Her rough but undisputed sway,
Her offspring to the ladder led,
And cuffed the youngsters up to bed.
Invited shortly to partake
Of venison, milk, and johnny cake,
The stranger made a hearty meal,
And glances round the room would steal.
One side was lined with divers garments,
The other spread with skins of varmints;
Dried pumpkins overhead were strung,
Where venison hams in plenty hung;
Two rifles placed above the door;
Three dogs lay stretched upon the floor -
In short, the domicile was rife
With specimens of Hoosier life.
The host, who centered his affections
On game, and range, and quarter sections,
Discoursed his weary guests for hours,
Till Somnus' all-composing powers
Of sublunary cares bereft 'em;
And then -
No matter how the story ended;
The application I intended
Is from the famous Scottish poet,
Who seemed to feel as well as know it,
That "buirdley chiels and clever hizzies
Are bred in sic' a way as this is."

*Railroads were problematical in 1830, when this was written.

"The weak are always anxious for justice and equality. The strong pay no heed to either." — Aristotle

"A species that enslaves other beings is hardly superior — mentally or otherwise." — Captain Kirk

"Now, I don't pretend to tell you how to find happiness and love, when every day is a struggle to survive. But I do insist that you do survive, because the days and the years ahead are worth living for!" — Edith Keeler

"Live long and prosper!" — Spock

"The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities." — Charles Dickens

2x32z Za'Darius Smith & Wesson don't be messin' Zoltan Almasi periodic rot Suez4 $29 pasta due.