Balance Sheets Quotes

• The two most important things in any company do not appear in its balance sheet: its reputation and its people.

  Henry Ford

  Two, People, Balance

  36 Copy quote

• Never invest in a company without understanding its finances. The biggest losses in stocks come from companies with poor balance sheets.

  Peter Lynch

  Loss, Understanding, Balance

  Peter Lynch (2012). “Beating the Street”, p.306, Simon and Schuster

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

  Mary Archer

  Business, Reading, Balance

  33 Copy quote

• All a company report and balance sheet can tell you is the past and the present. They cannot tell future.

  Nicolas Darvas

  Future, Past, Balance

  Nicolas Darvas (2006). “How I Made $2 Million in the Stock Market: The Darvas system for stock market profits”, p.98, Harriman House Limited

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• There are men who can write poetry, and there are men who can read balance sheets. The men who can read balance sheets cannot write.

  Henry R. Luce

  Writing, Men, Balance

  9 Copy quote

• The fact is that one of the earliest lessons I learned in business was that balance sheets and income statements are fiction, cash flow is reality.

  Chris Chocola

  Reality, Cash Flow, Balance

  "Entrepreneurial Minds: Clarifying your expectations". Business Week, October 26, 2014.

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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

  8 Copy quote

• Balance Sheets are meaningless. Our accounting systems are still based on the assumption that 80% of costs are manual labor.

  Peter Drucker

  Balance, Cost, Assumption

  9 Copy quote

• In financing growing companies, we always looked for human value that didn't appear on the balance sheet.

  Michael Milken

  Business, Balance, Growing

  15 Copy quote

• It's easier to teach a poet how to read a balance sheet than it is to teach an accountant how to write.

  Henry R. Luce

  Writing, Editing, Balance

  10 Copy quote

• Investment banking has, in recent years, resembled a casino, and the massive scale of gambling losses has dragged down traditional activities as banks try to rebuild their balance sheets.

  Vince Cable

  Loss, Gambling, Years

  "The Storm ... how to survive it (and how to prevent its return)" by Vince Cable, www.theguardian.com. March 24, 2009.

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• A good reputation for yourself and your company is an invaluable asset not reflected in the balance sheets.

  Li Ka-shing

  Balance, Reputation, Assets

  63 Copy quote

• We always look at the margin of safety in the balance sheet and then worry about the business.

  Peter Cundill

  Safety, Worry, Balance

  3 Copy quote

• A work of art expresses itself as a balance sheet pitting the spoken against the unspoken.

  Russell Sherman

  Art, Balance, Sheets

  4 Copy quote

• For most businesses, America is the most important asset on their balance sheet.

  Hillary Clinton

  America, Balance, Important

  Source: time.com

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• You can have a healthy fossil-fuel balance sheet, or a relatively healthy planet

  Bill McKibben

  Healthy, Balance, Fuel

  Bill McKibben (2013). “Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist”, p.103, Macmillan

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• In most cases the favorable price performance will be accompanied by a well-defined improvement in the average earnings, in the dividend, and in the balance-sheet position. Thus in the long run the market test and the ordinary business test of a successful equity commitment tend to be largely identical.

  Benjamin Graham

  Running, Commitment, Successful

  Benjamin Graham (1959). “The Intelligent Investor: A Book of Practical Counsel”

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• Evidently stockholders have forgotten more than to look at balance sheets. They have forgotten also that they are owners of a business and not merely owners of a quotation on the stock ticker. It is time, and high time, that the millions of American shareholders turned their eyes from the daily market reports long enough to give some attention to the enterprises themselves of which they are the proprietors, and which exist for their benefit and at their pleasure.

  Benjamin Graham

  Eye, Long, Giving

  21 Copy quote

• A company is an organic, living, breathing thing, not just an income sheet and balance sheet. You have to lead it with that in mind.

  Carly Fiorina

  Breathing, Mind, Balance

  6 Copy quote

• ...I couldn't but surmise that the devil, looking at the cruel wars that Christianity has occasioned, the persecutions, the tortures Christian has inflicted on Christian, the unkindness, the hypocracy, the intolerance, must consider the balance sheet with complacency. And when he remembers that it has laid upon mankind the bitter burden of the sense of sin that has darkened the beauty of the starry night and cast a baleful shadow on the passing plesures of a world to be enjoyed, he must chuckle as he murmurs: give the devil his due.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Christian, War, Night

  W. Somerset Maugham (2008). “The Razor's Edge”, p.226, Random House

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• I have a very, very great balance sheet, so great that when I did the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue, the United States government, because of my balance sheet, which they actually know very well, chose me to do the Old Post Office, between the White House and Congress, chose me to do the Old Post Office.

  Donald Trump

  White, Government, Office

  Second presidential debate, www.nytimes.com. October 10, 2016.

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• Derivatives serve practically no purpose except to enrich bankers through opaque pricing and to deceive investors through off-the-balance-sheet accounting.

  James Rickards

  Balance, Bankers, Purpose

  James Rickards (2014). “The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System”, p.14, Penguin

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• We are tasked to rebuild not just a damaged economy, and a debt-ridden balance sheet, but to do so by drawing forth the best that is in our fellow citizens. If we would summon the best from Americans, we must assume the best about them. If we don't believe in Americans, who will?

  Mitch Daniels

  Believe, Drawing, Balance

  Keynote Speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee, delivered 11 February 2011, Ronald Reagan Centennial Dinner, Washington, D.C.

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• Though it is very easy to do valuations, eyeballs and brand prominence surveys, you should never allow any of them to influence the balance sheet.

  Ashwin Sanghi

  Balance, Influence, Easy

  9 Copy quote

• If you don't have a functioning financial system the world economy won't be revived. All the major economies have their responsibility to assist at a pace which is required to clean up the balance sheet of the banking system and to ensure that credit flows are resumed.

  Manmohan Singh

  Responsibility, Balance, Pace

  6 Copy quote