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