Whoever decides to dedicate their life to politics knows that earning money isn’t the top priority.

The remark frames public service as a vocation defined by duty rather than personal enrichment. By contrasting politics with money-making, it implies that legitimate political commitment requires accepting financial trade-offs and resisting the temptations of self-dealing. The line also functions as a moral yardstick: if someone enters politics primarily to maximize income, they have misunderstood (or betrayed) the role’s purpose. In Merkel’s pragmatic style, the statement reads less like idealism than a sober reminder that political work is meant to prioritize the public interest, and that credibility in democratic leadership depends on maintaining a clear boundary between office and private gain.