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.

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