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.

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