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