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.

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