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.

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