In general I consider that in chess everything rests on tactics. If one thinks of strategy as a block of marble, then tactics are the chisel with which a master operates, in creating works of chess art. - Tigran Petrosian
The defensive power of a pinned piece is but imaginary. - Aaron Nimzowitsch
Tactics involve calculations that can tax the human brain, but when you boil them down, they are actually the simplest part of chess and are almost trivial compared to strategy. - Garry Kasparov
Tactics flow from a superior position. - Bobby Fischer
If the student forces himself to examine all the moves that smite, however absurd they look at first glance, he is on the way to becoming a master of tactics. - Cecil Purdy
Tactics involve calculations that can tax the human brain, but when you boil them down, they are actually the simplest part of chess and are almost trivial compared to strategy. - Garry Kasparov
Chess is 99% tactics. - Rudolph Teichmann
Discovered check is the dive bomber of the chess board. - Rueben Fine
We often hear the terms 'positional' and 'tactical' used as opposites. But this is as wrong as to consider a painting's composition unrelated to its subject. Just as there is no such thing as 'artistic' art, so there is no such thing as 'positional' chess. - Samuel Reshevsky
Good players develop a tactical instinct, a sense of what is possible or likely and what is not worth calculating. - Samuel Reshevsky
The tactician must know what to do whenever something needs doing;the strategist must know what to do when nothing needs doing. - Savielly Tartakower
No matter how much theory progresses, how radically styles change, chess play is inconceivable without tactics. - Samuel Reshevsky
Even the laziest king flees wildly in the face of double check. - Aaron Nimzowitsch