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.

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