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