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.

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