Notable quotes about accounting: Difference between revisions

| text = The word accounting comes from the word accountability. If you are going to be rich, you need to be accountable for your money.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Robert Kiyosaki {{Robert Kiyosaki/attribution}}

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| text = Accounting is not just about compliance; it’s about upholding the ethical fabric of financial systems.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Samantha Wilson {{Samantha Wilson/attribution}}

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| text = I have no use for bodyguards, but I have very specific use for two highly trained certified public accountants.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Elvis Presley {{Elvis Presley/attribution}}

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| text = 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<ref>...</ref>

| author = Warren Buffett {{Warren Buffett/attribution}}

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| text = Behind every good business is a great accountant.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Anonymous {{Anonymous/attribution}}

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| text = Accounting excellence is not just a skill; it’s a mindset of financial mastery.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Richard Turner {{Richard Turner/attribution}}

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| text = Accounting greatness is not just about what you calculate; it’s about the financial stories you unfold<ref>...</ref>

| author = Christopher Miller {{Christopher Miller/attribution}}

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| text = Creativity is great but not in accounting.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Charles Scott {{Charles Scott/attribution}}

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| text = Never call an accountant a credit to his profession; a good accountant is a debit to his profession.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Charles Lyell {{Charles Lyell/attribution}}

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| text = Capital isn’t this pile of money sitting somewhere; it’s an accounting construct.<ref>...</ref>

| text = 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.<ref>...</ref>

| text = Life is like accounting, everything must be balanced.<ref>...</ref>

| text = “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.”<ref>...</ref>

| text = “Creative accounting is an absolute curse to a civilization. One could argue that double-entry bookkeeping was one of history’s great advances. Using accounting for fraud and folly is a disgrace. In a democracy, it often takes a scandal to trigger reform. Enron was the most obvious example of a business culture gone wrong in a long, long time.”<ref>...</ref>

| text = Managers and investors alike must understand that accounting numbers are the beginning, not the end, of business valuation.<ref>...</ref>

| text = Companies run by engineers don’t make money, but companies run by accountants don’t make anything at all.<ref>...</ref>

| text = The reaction of weak management to weak operations is often weak accounting.<ref>...</ref>

| text = Accounting does not make corporate earnings or balance sheets more volatile. Accounting just increases the transparency of volatility in earnings.<ref>...</ref>

| text = To be successful, you should concentrate on the world of companies, not arcane accounting mathematics.<ref>...</ref>

| text = In the long run, management stressing accounting appearance over economic substance usually achieves little of either.<ref>...</ref>

| text = It sounds extraordinary, but it’s a fact that balance sheets can make fascinating reading.<ref>...</ref>

| text = People don’t pay attention. And then one day there’s an accounting. And after that, nothing is the same.<ref>...</ref>

| text = It has been my experience that competency in mathematics, both in numerical manipulations and in understanding its conceptual foundations (accounting), enhances a person’s ability to handle the more ambiguous and qualitative relationships that dominate our day-to-day financial decision-making.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Alan Greenspan {{Alan Greenspan/attribution}}

| text = People are accustomed to thinking of accounting as dry and boring, a necessary evil used primarily to prepare financial reports and survive audits, but that is because accounting is something that has become taken for granted.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ries |first=Eric |title=The Startup Way}}</ref>

| author = Eric Ries, Author {{Eric Ries/attribution}}

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| text = The accountant is the unsung hero of today’s business. But how do you remember them? They count the beans and crunch the numbers.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Mary E. Jones {{Mary E. Jones/attribution}}

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| text = 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.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Barack Obama {{Barack Obama/attribution}}

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| text = 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.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Warren Buffett {{Warren Buffett/attribution}}

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| text = I would argue that a majority of the horrors we face would not have happened if the accounting profession developed and enforced better accounting.<ref>...</ref>

| author = Charlie Munger {{Charlie Munger/attribution}}

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| text = 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.<ref>...</ref>

| author = W. H. Auden {{W. H. Auden/attribution}}

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