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.

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