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.

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