Wealth & Money Quote by Mother Teresa

It’s an argument for an economy that runs on something other than cash, and it’s sharpened by the deliberately jarring example of the leper. Mother Teresa isn’t just praising charity; she’s staging a moral contrast so stark it borders on scandal: money can buy proximity, service, even “care” from institutions, but it can’t buy the kind of attention she’s claiming to offer. The line works because it admits an ugly truth about human instinct - “I wouldn’t touch a leper for a thousand pounds” - and then pivots to a higher loyalty that overrides disgust. She’s not presenting herself as naturally saintly; she’s presenting sanctity as a discipline, a decision to act against reflex.

The subtext is also a quiet rebuke to respectable philanthropy. In a world where the rich can purchase comfort, discretion, and clean boundaries, the poor are often offered services stripped of tenderness: treatment without dignity, aid without kinship. Her phrase “for love what the rich could get for money” implies that the poor deserve not just relief but the same sense of being worth someone’s time.

Context matters: postwar global inequality, urban slums, and the Catholic tradition of redemptive service framed suffering as a site of encounter with God. That framework is controversial now, especially given modern public-health expectations, but the rhetorical intent is clear: she’s elevating intimacy as the scarce resource, and she’s daring listeners to ask what they’re actually unwilling to touch - physically, socially, politically - even if they can afford to look compassionate from a safe distance.