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.

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