Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings.

Sandburg’s line compresses the modern ambivalence about money into a rapid series of contradictions. Money is “power” because it converts into influence over people and institutions; it is “freedom” because it expands one’s choices and mobility; it is a “cushion” because it buffers misfortune. Yet it is also “the root of all evil,” echoing the biblical warning about the love of money, and finally “the sum of blessings,” acknowledging how thoroughly material security can feel like salvation. The quote’s force lies in refusing a single moral verdict: money is portrayed as a tool that magnifies human motives—protective and liberating, but also corrupting and spiritually distorting.