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.

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