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.

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