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