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.

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