Lasker

What did Lasker mean by "Distrust a pawn move.  Check its balance sheet."

Never move your pawns, its bad for your health

It would be good to know the source of this, maybe the context of the quote would help out here. And even if it doesn't, I'd still like to know the source out of idle curiosity.

BUT I'm guessing he meant you have to check out the pros and cons of a pawn move, since unlike pieces, you can't "retract" a pawn move ie move it back to the sq it came from; and every time you move a pawn it controls 1 or 2 new squares (ie by being able to capture on the adjacent forward diagonal) but it also loses control of other squares at the same time.

I think Lasker was referring to "assets + liabilities" as in "pros + cons" of a pawn move. I'm guessing he probably didn't equate shareholders equity with chess either.