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.

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