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.

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