Garry Kasparov Quotes

Putin is going to do what Putin is going to do.

Bishops and judges are some of the best politicians in the world. They know how to manipulate the political process.

Anything's possible in politics.

You don’t know today which country is going to matter in three years

In a mahagathabandhan, who will use whom and who will trip whom is not clear.

Everything in politics is politically motivated, didn't you know?

My impression is that Putin feels that he can basically manipulate the West to do what he ultimately wants to achieve, and that he feels he's gotten away with it so far, and that all he has to do is basically play the same game.

In the game of thrones, even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own. Sometimes they refuse to make the moves you've planned for them.

How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It's the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It's been two hundred years at it. It's superb.

There is no gambling like politics. Nothing in which the power of circumstance is more evident.

Some princes, so as to hold securely the state, have disarmed their subjects, others have kept their subject towns distracted by factions...Our forefathers, and those who were reckoned wise, were accustomed to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoia [an Italian city] by factions and Pisa by fortress, and with this idea they fostered quarrels in some of their tributary towns so as to keep possession of them the more easily.

I'm learning to use others' weaknesses. I don't hammer a man's soft spot constantly, because he may strengthen it. I just save it as a trump up my sleeve for moments when I really need a point.

You should expect everything. Not necessarily through the government, the governments are not the only player in [Middle East] region.

You will find ambiguity a great ally on your road to power. Give a sign of Slytherin on one day, and contradict it with a sign of Gryffindor the next; and the Slytherins will be enabled to believe what they wish, while the Gryffindors argue themselves into supporting you as well. So long as there is uncertainty, people can believe whatever seems to be to their own advantage. And so long as you appear strong, so long as you appear to be winning, their instincts will tell them that their advantage lies with you. Walk always in the shadow, and light and darkness both will follow.

[Vladimir] Putin is more of a poker player. In poker, unlike chess, you can effectively compensate for a very weak hand by bluffing. There are fixed rules in chess, and no one knows how the game will end. Things are currently the other way around in Putin's realm. But it won't stay that way forever.

[Y]ou will understand the game behind the curtain too well not to perceive the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the government.

Donald Trump didn't even understand, right, that [Vladimir] Putin was playing him. So, in Putin's mind, I have no doubt that Putin thinks that he's an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation, although Putin would never say that.

From Mr. [Donald] Trump's perspective, right, he simply heard [Vladimir] Putin compliment him. He then responded by complimenting him. He never thought that he might be being played.

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.

The skill of the politician consists in guessing what people can be brought to think advantageous to themselves; the skill of the expert consists in calculating what really is advantageous, provided people can be brought to think so.

In a society like ours, politics is improvisation. To the artful dodger rather than the true believer goes the prize.

Obama is like a chess player who is playing simultaneous chess and has opened his game with an unusual opening.

How laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, every one knows. Still the experience of our times shows those princes to have done great things who have had little regard for good faith, and have been able by astuteness to confuse men's brains, and who have ultimately overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation.

The fact that Hitler was a political genius unmasks the nature of politics in general as no other fact can.

The life of man is like a game with dice; if you don't get the throw you want, you must show your skill in making the best of the throw you get.