Accounting Quotes

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

  Warren Buffett

  Business, Management, Weak

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• Creativity is great-but not in accounting.

  Charles Scott

  Creativity

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

  Mary Archer

  Business, Reading, Balance

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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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• I thought I could start over, you see. But now I know you can never start over. Not really. You think you have control, but you are like a fly in somebody else's web. Sometimes I think that's why I like accounting. All day, you are only dealing with numbers. You add them, multiply them, and if you are careful, you will always have a solution. There's a sequence there. An order. With numbers, you can have control.

  Barack Obama

  Thinking, Order, Numbers

  Barack Obama (2007). “Dreams From My Father”, p.266, Canongate Books

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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

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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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• 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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• 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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• I have to say accounting almost killed me.

  Venus Williams

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

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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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• What is meat for one is not for another--no accounting for fancy.

  Abigail Adams

  Meat, Fancy

  John Adams, Abigail Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1970). “Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution: With a Memoir of Mrs. Adams”, Ayer Company Pub

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

  Warren Buffett

  Successful, World, Mathematics

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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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