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.

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