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