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.

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