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.

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