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.

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