Wealth & Money Quote by Benjamin Franklin

Franklin lands a needle under the fingernail of privilege: money feels omnipotent right up until the body refuses to cooperate. The line isn’t romantic about suffering; it’s diagnostic about power. Wealth buys buffers - distance from danger, better food, cleaner air, quieter neighborhoods, faster access to doctors. Most days, that insulation can masquerade as control. Illness punctures the illusion because it drags even the well-protected into a realm where bargaining fails: pain doesn’t take bribes, infection doesn’t respect property, mortality doesn’t negotiate.

The intent is double-edged. On the surface, it’s a moral reminder meant to humble the affluent, forcing a fleeting identification with the limits everyone else lives with permanently. Underneath, it’s a political observation from a revolutionary-era pragmatist: a society that lets the rich forget their dependence on the common world becomes brittle. When the privileged can purchase their way around public problems, they stop investing in shared solutions. Sickness interrupts that escape route. Suddenly, sanitation, competent physicians, trustworthy institutions, and the health of strangers matter again.

Franklin’s subtext is also about the psychology of wealth: it doesn’t just accumulate resources, it accumulates a sense of deservedness, even invulnerability. Illness is the one invoice that arrives without regard for status. In an age when medicine was rudimentary and epidemics were common, the point hit harder: riches could fund comfort, not guarantees. The sting is that this truth remains contemporary - just with better upholstery.