#lasker

When chessplayers of little skill are opposed to each other, it is evident that their choice of moves is somewhat restricted on account of the purpose that they have in view; the checkmate. 

Where a mediocre chessplayer sees ten moves to continue his game, a master may see only two or three. He discards the others as not of sufficient merit. The further the master progresses in skill and foresight the more is he restricted in his choice of moves. It is very similar in other [struggles]. If a mediocre pianist plays a piece before a musical audience he will imagine that he is able to execute his task in a variety of styles. But for Rosenthal or Paderewski only one way of rendering the piece will exist. The higher the class of the artist, the less is his liberty.

- Struggle [pdf] (1907, p. 15-16), by Emanuel Lasker. 

And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower; until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do . . . 

- The Master Summoner to Ged, in A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin (1971, in the chapter “The Loosing of the Shadow.”) This passage is preceded by the line “You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all.”