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.

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