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.

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