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.

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