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