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