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.

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