Most of these proverbs were collected by S.Coffin and he kindly gave me permission to publish the list. Some of these proverbs were merged into the Internet Go Dictionary.

The aphorisms by Pierre Audouard appeared between 1994 and 1995 in the French Go Review under the title "Some words about Go", and signed by Jean de Laveline (pseudonym of Pierre Audouard) and were translated by Tom Keel.

By default the proverbs are shown in a predefined order Alternatively, you can have them shuffled (the order is randomized) or ordered by author.

• (A shicho works or doesn't work, but sometimes you don't see it, you don't play it). The possible and the impossible are visible and invisible. What happens is always what you see, what is played.
  Audouard, Pierre
• One big eye kills one small eye  --  anonymous
• 5 lines for extension in front of shimari
  Yang Yilun, 7p
• A basic: Don't push too hard.
  jansteen
• This time and this space have certain properties, and for a long time, to progress means to become familiar with them.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Every move brings change.
  Audouard, Pierre
• The nature of a game comes from what is played, but it's the sensitivity to the possible and the impossible that gives it value.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Do not fear furikawari  --  anonymous
• Take the cutting stone on the second line  --  anonymous
• Stop on second, extend on third  --  anonymous
• Don't overlook the edge of the board  --  anonymous
• In an unreasonable situation, an unreasonable move is reasonable
  Tamino
• White is always trying to kill a bigger group than black is trying to save  --  anonymous
• Pon-nuki is worth thirty points  --  anonymous
• If one player chooses influence, the other player may choose territory, and vice versa  --  anonymous
• Keep away from thickness  --  anonymous
• Strike at the waist of the knight's move  --  anonymous
• Ikken tobi is never wrong  --  anonymous
• Fill in a semiai from the outside  --  anonymous
• (Any move that follows the rules is legal). Possibilities differ according to strength.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Those who are good at winning, don't usually fight.
  zhang, 1078 AD
• It is difficult to know exactly what you are doing.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Go is a game of chance where the strong player is he who renders circumstances favorable with tricks.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Contesting, destabilizing, and threatening are sources of transformation.
  Audouard, Pierre
• There is death in the hane  --  anonymous
• To do or not to do something is not determined by what is done in general, any more than by what is necessary. Doing or not doing something is determined by what you want, and to want in go is to want to win.
  Audouard, Pierre
• In the corner, five stones in a row on the third line are alive  --  anonymous
• A meijin needs no joseki  --  anonymous
• If black doesn't pile up enough errors to lose, then it will soon be time to lower the handicap.
  Audouard, Pierre
• When in doubt, remove the enemy stones from the board.
  Taylor, Bill
• When your opponent is thick, you must also become thick.
  Otake Hideo, 9p
• If you don't know ladders, don't play go  --  anonymous
• Win the early ko to win the game  --  anonymous
• Dead group? Always win ko fights!  --  anonymous
• If White takes all four corners, Black should resign; if Black takes all four corners, Black should also resign.
  Kent, David
• Corner, side, centre  --  anonymous
• There is a time and a space which are the same in all go games: the alternating of black and white, and the intersections.
  Audouard, Pierre
• When in a winning position, keep the game simple; Make it complex only when losing  --  anonymous
• The strong player plays straight, the weak diagonally  --  anonymous
• From a cross-cut, extend  --  anonymous
• Thickness? Ladders always work! [or don't work if it belongs to your opponent!]  --  anonymous
• Sacrifice small to take large  --  anonymous
• Be a little patient. Keshi works!  --  anonymous
• Don't count territory held by only one eye!  --  anonymous
• Josekis are not fixed, definitive things. They indicate the moments when everything can change.
  Audouard, Pierre
• At the head of three stones in a row, play hane  --  anonymous
• Extend one hand from the cross-cut  --  anonymous
• The L-group is dead  --  anonymous
• Avoid the plate connection  --  anonymous
• If you cannot succeed, then die gloriously
  Chinese proverb
• If a formation is symmetrical, play at the center  --  anonymous
• In the sound of the stone your can hear its purpose.
  Audouard, Pierre
• If you have won four corners, resign  --  anonymous
• Don't reduce your own liberties.
  Taylor, Bill
• The carpenter's square becomes ko  --  anonymous
• Don't get surrounded! Ever!  --  anonymous
• Don't make compact groups of stones  --  anonymous
• More haste less speed.
  Fairbairn, John
• Fighting must not be the key to go, it should be reserved as your last resource.
  zhong-pu liu, 1078 AD
• There is damezumari at the bamboo joint  --  anonymous
• Proverbs do not apply to White.
  Sand, Tero
• Against three in a row, play right in the center  --  anonymous
• Balance is not what players strive for, and if it does arise, it is in spite of them.
  Audouard, Pierre
• For the comb formation in the corner, dame is necessary  --  anonymous
• To emphasize the lack of determination in his moves, one speaks of chance.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Don't play on dame points, but guarantee connections  --  anonymous
• Don't defend - extend!
  Taylor, Bill
• For rectangular six in the corner, dame is necessary  --  anonymous
• Learning josekis by heart is useless if you don't try departing from them.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Conservative and slow will win. Believe it!  --  anonymous
• Everything happens on a grid-engraved board with black and white pieces, but if that's all you see then you don't know Go.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Six eyes in a rectangle are alive  --  anonymous
• Don't make a play adjacent to a cutting-point  --  anonymous
• Error is one of the sources of transformation.
  Audouard, Pierre
• If you lose by one point, take a rest  --  anonymous
• Only amateurs try to come up with fancy moves  --  anonymous
• Five liberties for tactical stability  --  anonymous
• Those who are good at making shape don't usually fight.
  zhang, 1078 AD
• Territory is a closed space where time no longer exists. The transformation around it slowly alter it, and sometimes it cracks open like a rotten egg at the least shock.
  Audouard, Pierre
• One point in the center is worth ten in the corner  --  anonymous
• In the opening, when you don't know what to play, make a shimari.
  jansteen
• Know the eye-stealing tesuji  --  anonymous
• Go is not a blocking game, it's a game of action.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Go is essentially a form of harmony. Go in the 21st century will have to be go of the 'harmony of the six points - the four quarters, the above and the below.' As in life we will need to view the whole rather than the part. Japanese go has focused too heavily on the local (joseki) rather than the whole for 300 years. The reason the Chinese and Koreans are overtaking the Japanese is that they are closer to achieving this whole-board view.
  Go Seigen, 9p, 1994
• Beware of going back to patch up your plays  --  anonymous
• There are players who don't accept exchanges: they play many moves that perpetuate a previous state of the game.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Beginner's games are surprising, often incoherent and incomprehensible. When you improve, your game gains in consistency but flirts with stupidity: you become satisfied with truisms and mechanical movements, you try to obtain a feeling for clearness and style the easy way.
  Audouard, Pierre
• The monkey jump is worth eight points  --  anonymous
• Beware of the clumsy double contact  --  anonymous
• If your stone is capped, play the knight's move  --  anonymous
• The saki bottle shape is negative  --  anonymous
• Use the Knight's move to attack, the 1-point jump to defend  --  anonymous
• Don't disturb symmetry  --  anonymous
• Add one stone, then sacrifice both  --  anonymous
• Turn, turn, turn!
  Taylor, Bill
• If you plan to live inside enemy territory, play directly against his stones  --  anonymous
• In opponents' sphere of influence, avoid sharp conflict, don't move too deep
  Otake Hideo, 9p
• Strange things happen at the one-two points  --  anonymous
• Keep inessential ataris till the end  --  anonymous
• With less than 15 stones in danger, tenuki  --  anonymous
• Make a fist before striking
  Kim, Jay H.
• Hane? Extend! Make it a habit  --  anonymous
• Don't play in direct contact with the opponent's stone caught in your squeeze-play  --  anonymous
• Never be too sure about your plan, and always doubt your ability to kill your opponent's stones.
  zhong-pu liu, 1078 AD
• At the head of two stones in a row, play hane  --  anonymous
• Win the stones, lose the game  --  anonymous
• There are lines, like roots, that plunge into the stone and shatter it.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Sacrifice for shape  --  anonymous
• On the third line, four die, six live  --  anonymous
• Strange things happen at the one-two points  --  anonymous
• Play slow, win slow; play fast, lose fast  --  anonymous
• Shoulder connections, hanging connections, and knight's move connections  --  anonymous
• To invade, need 20 points in open area; otherwise, keshi is best.
  Yang Yilun, 7p
• Each step in a ladder is worth 7 points  --  anonymous
• The rectangular six is normally alive  --  anonymous
• The book says don't fight (The pen is mightier than the sword). But what else can be expected from a book (written by a pen)?  --  anonymous
• Don't make empty triangles  --  anonymous
• Don't be greedy!  --  anonymous
• There are possible things, impossible things, and things that happen. Sometimes things happen that were impossible.
  Audouard, Pierre
• The ax's handle rots while the mind lives to the rhythm of the stones.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Answer the keima with a kosumi  --  anonymous
• The weak player fears ko, the strong player seeks it.
  Taylor, Bill
• Keep your own stones connected, and your opponent's apart.
  Taylor, Bill
• There is a thin line between thick and slow.
  jansteen
• Attack two weak groups simultaneously  --  anonymous
• The poor player plays the opponent's game for him  --  anonymous
• You must incessantly question yourself about this time and this space.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Always remember, keep the balance (between territory and influence)
  Figaro
• One is never aware enough of the violence in go.
  Audouard, Pierre
• The semeai where only one player has an eye is a fight over nothing  --  anonymous
• When your opponent has two weak groups, attack them both at once  --  anonymous
• The comb formation is alive  --  anonymous
• A knight's move near the edge of the board cannot be cut.
  Taylor, Bill
• Don't peep at cutting points  --  anonymous
• Groups mustn't float  --  anonymous
• Keep sente in the opening. A premature attack loses sente  --  anonymous
• Grab the shape points as kikashi  --  anonymous
• If you have one stone on the third line, add another, then abandon both of them  --  anonymous
• To reduce an opponent's large prospective territory, strike at the shoulder  --  anonymous
• Use a wall to attack, not to make territory  --  anonymous
• The intersection is rarely neutral.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Good moves and bad moves are bedfellows  --  anonymous
• Sacrifice and squeeze  --  anonymous
• Territory really exists only in the end.
  Audouard, Pierre
• If there is a ko inside a semeai, capture it on the final play  --  anonymous
• The possibility or impossibility of an event results logically from the rules.
  Audouard, Pierre
• You must always consider the circumstances. Nothing is identical, yet things repeat.
  Audouard, Pierre
• With only one group, you will win  --  anonymous
• There is a time for doing things.
  Audouard, Pierre
• The second line is the line of defeat, the third line is the line of territory, and the fourth line is the line of influence  --  anonymous
• 2-1 is the vital point in the corner  --  anonymous
• Grab the 4th point of the bamboo joint.
  Taylor, Bill
• Very few good moves are played.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Does white await black's errors? Certainly, in two ways: either he makes clean, clear, dangerous moves; or he makes confusing, twisted moves that are just as dangerous. The adequate answers are always difficult to find.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Empty triangles are bad  --  anonymous
• Five groups might live but the sixth will die  --  anonymous
• You can hide nothing on the goban.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Don't make territory near thickness  --  anonymous
• If there is no stone on the handicap point, the carpenter's square is dead  --  anonymous
• Do not make moves that strengthen your opponent!  --  anonymous
• Keshi is worth as much as an invasion!  --  anonymous
• The stone in the bowl is idiotic.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Seek small gains but incur big losses  --  anonymous
• There are times when even a fight over nothing means something  --  anonymous
• There are players who clack down ridiculous moves. Certain others place their moves with crisp, dry contact, like bones cracking. Still others drop their stones with a soft sound.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Big groups never die  --  anonymous
• Don't try to enclose an open skirt  --  anonymous
• The simplest move is the best move  --  anonymous
• Attach to the strongest stone in a pincer  --  anonymous
• From the way the players perceive what can happen and what shouldn't happen springs what happens.
  Audouard, Pierre
• The game plays itself, the players don't control it.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Never try to cut bamboo joints  --  anonymous
• When you study joseki, you lose two stones in strength  --  anonymous
• Sometimes an idiotic stone loafs about the goban.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Defend weak groups, not strong groups  --  anonymous
• Eyes win semiais  --  anonymous
• On the second line six die, eight live  --  anonymous
• Don't make dango's  --  anonymous
• Grab the border point between two moyos  --  anonymous
• If you have lost four corners, resign  --  anonymous
• Learn the eye-stealing tesuji  --  anonymous
• Capture what you cut off  --  anonymous
• Knight's moves win running battles  --  anonymous
• The enemy's vital point is your own  --  anonymous
• Make your own groups strong first, then attack  --  anonymous
• Learn to play under the stones  --  anonymous
• Connect with good shape  --  anonymous
• Nothing requires doing this or that, but necessity exists.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Everything would seem to be possible in go. Like pulling a rabbit, by a magical move, out of a hat.
  Audouard, Pierre
• Atari, atari is vulgar play  --  anonymous
• You have to like to win, and to learn to recognize the errors that gave you the victory.
  Audouard, Pierre
• There is no territory in the centre  --  anonymous