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

  28 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

  29 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

  6 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

  5 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

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• 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

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

  Russell Sherman

  Art, Balance, Sheets

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

  Michael Milken

  Business, Balance, Growing

  12 Copy quote

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

  Li Ka-shing

  Balance, Reputation, Assets

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

  Peter Cundill

  Safety, Worry, Balance

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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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• 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

  18 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

  3 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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• When Gordon Brown becomes prime minister, the balance sheet that reflects his economic stewardship could look very sickly indeed. He could become Labour's biggest liability, not its most marketable asset.

  Vince Cable

  Balance, Looks, Stewardship

  "Cable calls for cuts" by Matthew Tempest, www.theguardian.com. September 20, 2005.

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• When I started Netscape I was brand new out of college and all the aspects of building a business, like balance sheets and hiring people, were new to me.

  Marc Andreessen

  College, People, Balance

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• Market values are fixed only in part by balance sheets and income statements; much more by the hopes and fears of humanity; by greed, ambition, acts of God, invention, financial stress and strain, weather, discovery, fashion and numberless other causes impossible to be listed without omission.

  Gerald M. Loeb

  Fashion, Business, Stress

  Gerald M. Loeb (2007). “Battle for Investment Survival”, p.2, John Wiley & Sons

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• When the planes still swoop down and aerial spray a field in order to kill a predator insect with pesticides, we are in the Dark Ages of commerce. Maybe one thousandth of this aerial insecticide actually prevents the infestation. The balance goes to the leaves, into the soil, into the water, into all forms of wildlife, into ourselves. What is good for the balance sheet is wasteful of resources and harmful to life.

  Paul Hawken

  Dark, Order, Water

  10 Copy quote

• We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet.

  Warren Buffett

  Opportunity, Interesting, Balance

  Warren Buffett (2009). “Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha”, p.130, John Wiley & Sons

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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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