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.

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