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.

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