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.

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