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.

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