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.

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