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.

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