Accounting Quotes

• The word accounting comes from the word accountability. If you are going to be rich, you need to be accountable for your money.

  Robert Kiyosaki

  Accountability, Needs, Rich

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• Accounting is the language of business.

  Warren Buffett

  Business, Language, Billionaire

  "CNBC Excerpts: Billionaire Investor Warren Buffett on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Today". "Squawk Box", www.cnbc.com. March 2, 2015.

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• The reaction of weak management to weak operations is often weak accounting.

  Warren Buffett

  Business, Management, Weak

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• You have to know accounting. It's the language of practical business life. It was a very useful thing to deliver to civilization. I've heard it came to civilization through Venice which of course was once the great commercial power in the Mediterranean. However, double entry bookkeeping was a hell of an invention.

  Charlie Munger

  Business, Power, Civilization

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• Managers and investors alike must understand that accounting numbers are the beginning, not the end, of business valuation.

  Warren Buffett

  Numbers, Ends, Billionaire

  Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman's Letter, www.berkshirehathaway.com. 1982.

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• Creativity is great-but not in accounting.

  Charles Scott

  Creativity

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• Destiny gave me only two things: a few accounting books and the gift of dreaming.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Dream, Book, Destiny

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa, 1982.

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• You have to understand accounting and you have to understand the nuances of accounting. It's the language of business and it's an imperfect language, but unless you are willing to put in the effort to learn accounting - how to read and interpret financial statements - you really shouldn't select stocks yourself

  Warren Buffett

  Effort, Nuance, Imperfect

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• Accounting does not make corporate earnings or balance sheets more volatile. Accounting just increases the transparency of volatility in earnings.

  Diane Garnick

  Balance, Doe, Earning

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• It sounds extraordinary, but it's a fact that balance sheets can make fascinating reading.

  Mary Archer

  Business, Reading, Balance

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• Proper accounting is like engineering. You need a margin of safety. Thank God we don't design bridges and airplanes the way we do accounting.

  Charlie Munger

  Airplane, Engineering, Bridges

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• If you want an accounting of your worth, count your friends.

  Mary Browne

  Inspirational, Friendship, Real Friends

  43 Copy quote

• To be successful, you should concentrate on the world of companies, not arcane accounting mathematics.

  Warren Buffett

  Successful, World, Mathematics

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• There's real "right brain" creativity that goes into all of the organizational processes that a company utilizes and must continually reinvent in order to conduct its business. But there are also the "left brain" accounting functions that must continually ask how the company is doing financially and whether the creative processes are working for the bottom line.

  John Kao

  Real, Creativity, Order

  Interview with Joel Kurtzman, www.strategy-business.com. October 1, 1996.

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• Balanced budget requirements seem more likely to produce accounting ingenuity than genuinely balanced budgets.

  Thomas Sowell

  Business, Requirements, Produce

  Interview with John Hawkins, rightwingnews.com. February 8, 2012.

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• People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that, nothing is the same.

  Cormac McCarthy

  People, One Day, Attention

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• Managers thinking about accounting issues should never forget one of Abraham Lincoln's favorite riddles: How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg? The answer: Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

  Warren Buffett

  Dog, Thinking, Issues

  Warren Buffett (2009). “Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha”, p.186, John Wiley & Sons

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• People always ask me, 'Were you funny as a child?' Well, no, I was an accountant.

  Ellen DeGeneres

  Inspirational, Funny, Hilarious

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• In the corporate world, sometimes things aren`t exactly black and white when it comes to accounting procedures.

  George W. Bush

  Black And White, World, Sometimes

  George W. Bush's Press Conference, georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov. July 8, 2002.

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• Without market prices for capital goods, accounting is not possible. You don't know if you are making money or losing money, saving resources or wasting them, doing the right thing or not doing the right thing.

  Llewellyn Rockwell

  Saving, Losing, Making Money

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• Accounting for the most part, remains a legalistic and traditional practice, almost immune to self-criticism by scientific methods.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Self, Practice, Criticism

  "Philosophical Perspectives on Accounting: Essays in Honour of Edward Stamp". Book by Edward Stamp and Michael J. Mumford, p. 147, 1993.

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• The older I get, the more interesting I find lawyers and accountants.

  Alex James

  Business, Interesting, Lawyer

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• Mathematics is less related to accounting than it is to philosophy.

  Leonard Adleman

  Philosophy, Math, Science

  "SCIENTIST AT WORK: Leonard Adleman; Hitting the High Spots Of Computer Theory" by Gina Kolata, www.nytimes.com. 1994.

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• I have to say accounting almost killed me.

  Venus Williams

  Interview with Timea Bacinszky, www.ubitennis.net. August 28, 2014.

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• There are three cardinal rules - don't take somebody else's boyfriend unless you've been specifically invited to do so, don't take a drink without being asked, and keep a scrupulous accounting in financial matters.

  W. H. Auden

  Matter, Three, Funny Business

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