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.

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