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.

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