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Balance Sheets Quotes

Business lines on balance sheets, costs, and long-term value

This page collects quotes on balance sheets, from questions about hidden environmental costs to warnings about growing too large too fast. For more, browse our accounting quotes collection.

Throughout the industrial era, economists considered manufactured capital - money, factories, etc. - the principal factor in industrial production, and perceived natural capital as a marginal contributor. The exclusion of natural capital from balance sheets was an understandable omission. There...

Quotes by Paul Hawken

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

Quotes by Mary Archer

It is economically irrational to exclude large environmental costs from the balance sheets of the producers and the consumers. You are only kidding yourself if you export those costs on to society as a whole.

Quotes by John Holdren

Legislative reforms in the 1990s and the public/private structure led managements to expand the GSEs' balance sheets to enormous size, underpinned by wafer-thin slivers of capital, driving high shareholder returns and very high compensation for management.

Quotes by Jerome Powell

Accounting Quotes

It is important that global business leaders understand that they need to think beyond their quarterly balance sheets and see what it is that they are creating.

Quotes by Jaggi Vasudev

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.

Quotes by Henry R. Luce

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

Quotes by Diane Garnick

Creating jobs for your country's workers is about much more than ensuring that the balance sheets of your country's companies are strong, or stimulating domestic demand. It is about figuring out how your country's workers fit into the global economy.

Quotes by Chrystia Freeland

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.

Quotes by Chris Chocola

Bad Quotes

Deflation can be particularly dangerous when a financial system is shaky, with household and corporate balance sheets in poor shape and banks undercapitalized and heavily burdened with bad loans.

Quotes by Ben Bernanke

Frequently Asked Questions

What perspective do these balance sheets quotes offer?
They mostly come from a business and economic viewpoint, questioning what gets counted, or left out, when a company reports its numbers.
Do any quotes mention environmental costs?
Yes, one quote argues that leaving environmental costs off producer and consumer balance sheets makes no real economic sense.
Is there a quote about balance sheets growing too large?
Yes, one references how legislative reforms in the 1990s let certain institutions expand their balance sheets to an enormous, thinly capitalized size.
Can balance sheets actually be interesting to read?
According to one quote, yes, balance sheets can apparently make for fascinating reading, however unlikely that might sound.
Where can I find more quotes on related business topics?
Explore our accounting quotes collection for more perspectives connected to financial reporting.

Several quotes urge leaders to look past a single quarter's numbers toward what a company is truly building. Related reading includes our business quotes page.