Mikhail Krasenkov, "The Open Spanish"

A hundred years ago players had no doubt as to Black's best reply to 1 e4. Everybody knew the basic principles of the opening strategy: develop pieces and fight for the centre! If somebody had asserted that Sicilian, French or Caro-Kann Defence gave Black better chances to win than 1...e5 (and had published a book about it) he would have been considered rather less than sane!