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.

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