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.

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