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.

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