Chess
George Salmon was a keen chess player, he was a patron to the University Chess Club, and was also the President of Dublin Chess Club from 1890–1903. He participated in the second British Chess Congress and had the honour of playing the great chess grandmaster Paul Morphy in Birmingham, England, on 27 August 1858. He beat Daniel Harrwitz in an interesting game.
Even in his famous book Infallibility of the Church, Salmon mentions chess a few times:
- He argues that the doctrine of papal infallibility is vitally important for opponents of Catholicism to refute; otherwise all other arguments would be of little importance, as when a chessplayer wins lots of pieces but his king is checkmated.
- In another chess reference Salmon said that if one met someone who says that he has never been beaten, this player could be given rook odds. Thus "the delusion of infallibility can never grow up in the mind of anyone except one who has never met a strong antagonist."
- Salmon said that if one played someone who would normally receive queen odds, then one would go easy and not be too strict, e.g. allowing take-backs. Thus he is so convinced that the Popes have erred that he is not threatened by acknowledging when they have been right.
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Famous quotes containing the word chess:
“There is a parallel between the twos and the tens. Tens are trying to test their abilities again, sizing up and experimenting to discover how to fit in. They don’t mean everything they do and say. They are just testing. . . . Take a good deal of your daughter’s behavior with a grain of salt. Try to handle the really outrageous as matter-of-factly as you would a mistake in grammar or spelling.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Of all my Russian books, The Defense contains and diffuses the greatest “warmth”Mwhich may seem odd seeing how supremely abstract chess is supposed to be.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)