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.

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